'Why, my son': Heartbroken mom of man who was shot in the head at NYC diner weeps as she recalls ordeal

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: The man shot in the head during a caught-on-video robbery and shooting at a Manhattan diner is a 37-year-old father who can't speak yet but is miraculously still alive, according to his weeping mother.

Grace Pena, 70, sobbed in her Washington Heights apartment as she looked at a Facebook photo of her son Harrison Ferreiras holding his now-8-year-old daughter when she was a toddler in 2017.

Victim's mother recalls Manhattan diner shooting incident

"I am heartbroken," the 70-year-old, told NewYork Post through a translator in Spanish, adding that the family has yet to inform her granddaughter that the child's father was seriously injured in the shootout.

Pena said she has been standing by her son's bedside in the Metropolitan Hospital Center's intensive care unit for the past two days, where he is hooked up to tubes and can't speak but remains alert, flashing "grateful" thumbs-up signs at his medical caregivers.

"[Police] came knocking on my door," Pena said of the moment she found out about the shooting. “Even if I had to crawl, I would have gone [to the hospital]. I was crying.”

On Wednesday, Ferreiras was seated at the Seafood King Fish Market counter at Broadway and West 163rd Street, just before two in the morning. The customer and a cashier had already had their phones and money taken by the masked thief.

The diner was hit in the right cheek by a single shot fired by the thief, who felt free to press his recognizable blue gun against the diner's head.

A puddle of blood engulfed Ferreiras and he fell to the ground. In the video obtained, he appeared to try to stand up before the cashier—who had been hiding behind the counter—rushed to his side.

Investigators said he was admitted to the hospital in critical condition. According to a staff member at the restaurant Friday, Ferreiras is a fairly regular patron who usually orders "salmon, yellow rice, and sometimes soup."

“I feel bad because he’s a good person, a good customer. He respects everyone — no trouble with him,” she went on to say.

Grace Pena expresses grief 

An employee stated that two NYPD detectives visited the diner on Friday for roughly ten minutes and requested information from the staff. Pena stated that ever since Ferreiras' predicament was made public, "his phone has not stopped ringing."

Everyone in the neighborhood knows Harrison, she claimed. "The physicians must forbid patients from visiting the hospital." She went on, expressing her sadness and grief, "People are kind, they are throwing themselves on the floor because of this tragedy. The doctors said he is very loved because of all the people coming to see him."

The youngest of her three children, her son is described by her as "a good kid" who frequently does favors for the neighbors on the block.

"It would be a different story if he was a street guy," she remarked. "Why, my son? I gave my kids education. … But that [shooter] did what he did. That stuff hurts." To find "peace in [her] heart," she claimed she must return home with her severely injured son.

“Of course, I’d love to go to the doctor and he can tell me, Oh, you’ll have your son back home healthy and safe, but it’s not like that. It’s a process. It’s a long process,” Pena stated.

Harrison Ferreiras' mother demands justice

Along with justice, she hopes to see the gunman who shot her son put behind bars. "I want everybody to know," stated Pena. “I want the person who did this to go to jail, lock him up. He has to pay for what he did. They have to find him and make him pay for what he did.”

The gunman, who was still at large as of Friday, December 8, is thought to be about five feet five. He was last seen donning a mask, black clothes, and a black hat. The gunman was also observed toting a black plastic bag containing the cash that he had allegedly made the cashier fork over at the register.

Ferreiras' third-grader daughter, who was kept in the dark about her father's fate, was excused from school on Thursday and Friday. “She and her father are very close. She loves her father a lot, a lot,” the girl's other grandmother, who wished to remain anonymous, remarked.

“Maybe if we tell her, we’ll have to take her to the hospital because she loves him a lot."

The woman, 61, continued, "We do things with her so she doesn't ask for him. Sometimes he goes to the hospital because he has problems with his stomach. If she asks, I’ll tell her he’s in the hospital because he has pains."

According to the grandmother, Ferreiras used to take his daughter to the movies and out to dinner. "Every time she calls, Daddy, bring me pizza, bring me McDonalds, he’ll do it," the woman claimed.

"My daughter is crying. Me, too. … Everybody is crying. It’s terrible," the woman continued.

"I feel very, very sad, not good. I have a son. … I love [Ferreiras] like [he is] my son, too. He’s a nice person, beautiful. Never in my life [have I seen] him fight with anybody. He has a good heart." She shook her head and said, "I can't go see him. May God help him stay alive."