By Christina Santucci
A southeast Queens family will be spending Thanksgiving without its patriarch after he was gunned down in Brooklyn while dropping off money to help a family friend buy a holiday meal.
“I know he is in heaven because it was a good deed. It was a good deed that he was trying to do,” Clifford Hubbard Jr. said of his father. “He didn’t have to do anything for everybody, but he did. That’s just the kind of person he was.”
Cambria Heights resident Clifford Hubbard Sr., 66, had just parked near the Whitman Houses in Fort Greene at about 3 a.m. Friday, cops and his family said.
“From what I understand from detectives, he walked a few feet and someone confronted him for his money,” Hubbard Jr. said.
Hubbard Sr., a U.S. Army veteran who served in the Vietnam War, would have been reluctant to hand over his belongings, his son said.
“A fight ensued and he just got shot,” Hubbard Jr. said.
Police said Hubbard Sr. had three gunshot wounds to the torso when officers arrived at 56 N. Oxford Walk, and emergency responders brought him to Kings County Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Hubbard Jr. was working with the Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services when he got a call from his uncle telling him about the shooting and he rushed to the hospital.
Police said Wednesday that no arrests had been made.
Hubbard Jr. said he hoped authorities were looking at surveillance videos from the surrounding area and police would be able to identify whoever killed his father.
“I want the person who is responsible to be held accountable,” he said.
A native of Fort Greene, Hubbard Sr. moved to Crown Heights after his time in the military before settling in Queens nine or 10 years ago.
“He loved to drive,” his son said. “He lived to drive trucks.”
Hubbard Jr. said his father worked as a truck driver delivering goods for Duane Reade, was married and had three children — two daughters, one of whom died a few years ago.
“I just hope I can live up to his footsteps,” his son said. “I’ll try.”
Hubbard Jr. described his father as outgoing and a jokester.
“He was more or less the life of the party,” his son said.
Hubbard Sr. also was an adoring grandfather to his seven grandkids, and the last conversation Hubbard Jr. had with his father was about his grandson Morris’ eighth birthday Monday. Hubbard Sr. planned to bring balloons for the child, nicknamed “Cliffie.”
On Sunday evening, relatives were still planning a Catholic funeral mass for Hubbard Sr. at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Queens Village once the city’s medical examiner’s office released his body.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” Hubbard Jr. said. “I would hate to think that he did something for others and somebody could get away with that.”
Reach managing editor Christina Santucci by e-mail at timesledgerphotos@gmail.com by phone at 718-260-4589.
