When Migdalia Martinez walked into a Bronx courtroom this week, she carried a reminder of why she was there across her chest.

Printed on her shirt were photographs of her 12-year-old son, Jacob Freytes.

Nearly two months earlier, Jacob had left home on what should have been an ordinary summer afternoon. He rode his bicycle to a neighborhood bodega in the Bronx to buy a ball.

He never came home.

On Sept. 17, Martinez sat inside Bronx Supreme Court as the man accused of firing the stray bullet that killed her son appeared before a judge. William Ferrer, 45, pleaded not guilty to charges connected to the July 25 shooting, including murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, assault and weapons offenses. He remains jailed without bail.

For Jacob’s mother, the hearing marked another painful step in a case defined by a devastating contrast: a child carrying out the simplest of errands, and a burst of gunfire that had nothing to do with him.

He Had Gone Out to Buy a Ball

The shooting happened shortly before 5 p.m. on July 25 in the Mount Eden section of the Bronx, near Elliot Place and Walton Avenue.

Investigators said Jacob was riding his bicycle through the neighborhood and had stopped at a nearby bodega to buy a ball when an argument erupted outside.

Jacob was not part of the dispute.

Surveillance footage reviewed during the investigation shows men arguing on the street moments before the shooting. Police said gunfire then broke out, striking three people.

Jacob was one of them.

Video from the scene shows the 12-year-old stumbling into the bodega after being hit, desperately seeking help. He had suffered a gunshot wound and was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Two adult men, ages 34 and 25, were also wounded in the shooting and survived.

For Jacob’s family, the fact that he had simply gone out to get a ball has remained one of the most painful details of the case.

There was no risky outing, no confrontation involving the boy and no indication that he had any connection to the dispute unfolding around him.

He happened to be there.

And within seconds, an ordinary trip through his own neighborhood became the last thing he ever did.

Surveillance Video Captured the Moments Before the Gunfire

The surveillance footage has become an important part of the case against Ferrer.

Investigators say the video shows an argument on the street shortly before shots were fired. Police allege Ferrer opened fire during the dispute and that one of the bullets struck Jacob, who was an innocent bystander.

Authorities have said the gunfire also struck the two adult men.

The images from the bodega tell only part of the story, but they capture what makes Jacob’s death especially difficult for his family to understand.

In one moment, the child was moving through a familiar neighborhood.

Moments later, he was inside a store, critically wounded.

Police arrested Ferrer the following morning in the Bronx. He was initially arraigned on multiple charges and ordered held without bail.

The allegations against him have not been proven, and he is presumed innocent unless convicted.

A Mother Returned to Court With Her Son’s Face on Her Shirt

Martinez had already spoken publicly about her grief in the days after Jacob’s death.

She remembered him as a loving, intelligent and playful child.

“He was a fun kid, loving, smart,” she said while describing the son she had lost.

But the Sept. 17 court appearance placed her physically in the same room as the man prosecutors accuse of causing that loss.

Martinez attended wearing a memorial shirt covered with images of Jacob.

She fought back tears as the hearing unfolded.

The shirt transformed what could otherwise have been a procedural court appearance into something intensely personal. Ferrer appeared as a defendant facing a series of criminal accusations. Martinez appeared as a mother determined to make sure the boy at the center of those charges was visible too.

Jacob was not simply a name in an indictment.

His face was there in the courtroom.

According to the latest court proceedings, Ferrer entered a not-guilty plea. A judge continued his detention without bail and scheduled his next court appearance for Nov. 17. The family was also cautioned that a trial might not begin until next year.

For a grieving family, that means the legal process may continue long after the shooting itself has disappeared from the daily news cycle.

The Case Has Always Been About a Child Who Was Not the Target

From the earliest hours of the investigation, police described Jacob as an innocent bystander.

That distinction has shaped how the community has reacted to his death.

He was not accused of participating in the argument.

He was not confronting anyone.

He was a 12-year-old on a bicycle who stopped to buy a ball.

His father is a retired New York Police Department detective sergeant, but relatives have emphasized that what happened to Jacob was not about his father’s former profession. It was about a child being caught in violence that had nothing to do with him.

In the days after the shooting, Jacob’s mother spoke about the pain of losing an innocent child to gunfire and called for accountability.

That demand has now moved from the sidewalk outside her home into a courtroom.

What the Video Cannot Show

Surveillance cameras may help prosecutors reconstruct the shooting.

They can show where people were standing, when an argument began and what happened in the seconds before shots were fired.

They can capture Jacob running into the bodega after he was hit.

But they cannot capture what disappeared with him.

His mother has described a boy who was loving, funny and smart.

He was only 12.

The trip to the store was supposed to end with him returning home carrying a ball.

Instead, his family received the kind of news that divides life into a permanent before and after.

That is why the images Martinez wore into court matter.

They turn the legal language — murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, assault — back into the face of the child whose death created the case in the first place.

The Court Process Is Only Beginning

Ferrer is accused of firing the gun during the July 25 confrontation and causing Jacob’s death, but prosecutors will still have to prove those allegations in court.

His not-guilty plea means the evidence, including surveillance footage, witness accounts and forensic findings, will be tested through the criminal justice process.

For Jacob’s mother, that process may be long.

The next hearing is scheduled for November, and the judge has warned that a trial may not begin until 2027.

But Martinez has already made clear she intends to keep showing up.

And when she entered court this week, she did so with Jacob’s face beside her.

Nearly two months after he rode away from home to buy a ball, his mother was forced to confront the man accused of ensuring he would never ride back.

The surveillance video may eventually help a jury determine what happened during those few seconds on a Bronx street.

For Jacob’s family, however, the most important fact has never been complicated.

He was 12 years old.

He was not part of the fight.

And he was supposed to come home.