By Zach Patberg
Mohamed Yussef, 55, was heard arguing with another person with a heavy accent around 2 a.m. in the driveway at 107-45 105th St. when one shot rang out, silencing Yussef with a wound to the head and setting off screams and commotion among family and neighbors, police and nearby residents said.Next-door neighbor Eli Garcia said he and his family were watching a movie upstairs when they heard the yelling match coming from the driveway that divides the two houses.”He was saying, 'No, don't do it! Don't do it!” Garcia, 27, said, referring to Yussef. “Then came a loud pop.”He, his cousins and brothers hit the floor at the sound while his sister ran downstairs to call 911.”I heard one woman screaming hysterically,” another neighbor down the street said later that morning.When Garcia stepped outside soon after the shooting, he said he saw Yussef lying in a pool of blood and still wearing more than $5,000 worth of gold chains.Police said they were still investigating the murder and could not comment on whether the attack was a robbery attempt.A Guyanese immigrant, Yussef lived in the nicely furnished basement of the house with his wife and 12-year-old son. Pictures on the walls showed a thickly built, nearly 7-foot man with a full beard and a smile standing next to his son, who family members said enjoyed going to the beach and for drives with his father.Brother-in-law Hary Jaikarran, 38, said Yussef was hoping to move to Florida where much of his family lived but that his work as an auto-parts delivery driver had prevented it. But in the meantime he had settled on the company of five parakeets shipped from Florida , which were still perched in cages hanging from the basement ceiling Sunday.”We used to talk about our futures,” recalled Jaikarran, a father of five, “about buying a house and keeping our families good.”Yussef's death followed a year that witnessed the lowest city homicide count since such records were first compiled in 1963. The 2004 total of 570 murders was 27 fewer than the previous year.Reach reporter Zach Patberg at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
