Gang members looking to settle a score gunned down the wrong man in a tragic case of mistaken identity in Brooklyn Tuesday, friends and relatives said.

Terrence Mahabir, a 22-year-old former John Jay student and aspiring police officer, was shot twice in the chest about 2:30 a.m. on E. 56th St. No one has been arrested and police have not nailed down a motive.

Friends and family said Mahabir was mistaken for pal Rolan Angaroo, who pinned a gun rap on a member of a Brooklyn gang known as the Outlaws.

"He didn't do nothing! What did he die for?" screamed the dead man's brother Malcolm Mahabir. "That was my everything!"

The victim's mother was inconsolable.

"He was one of the best boys you will ever find," said June Mahabir, 53. "Because of mistaken identity they shot my son. They took my baby. God gave him to me for 22 wonderful years. Now he is gone."

Mahabir was in the basement of the East Flatbush home with Angaroo when his pal went upstairs for a drink, recalled Cadian McDonald, Angaroo's 35-year-old brother. That's when gang members burst into the basement and mistook Mahabir for Angaroo, McDonald said.

The gang apparently had been gunning for Angaroo for months after he tried to dime out one of their members to police.

Angaroo faces a gun possession charge and appeared in Brooklyn Criminal Court Tuesday - hours after escaping death, said his lawyer James Kirshner.

"My brother's afraid for his life," McDonald said. "He never leaves the house anymore. These guys don't care about killing people. If they want you dead, you're dead."

McDonald said the murder victim and his brother shared a striking resemblance. "They must have got them confused," he said. "But they were targeting my brother."

Mahabir, who had no criminal record, attended John Jay College of Criminal Justice until this semester, the college said. He worked at Bake and Things, a bakery on E. 35th St. in Flatbush.

"He was one of the few young men who was doing what he was supposed to do," said his boss, Luigi Martino, 39. "We're still trying to figure it out. It makes no sense."



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/12/01/2010-12-01_thugs_killed_my_baby_by_mistake_ma.html#ixzz16rPaU940