Garrett Warren and Alfa Barrie
Investigators are looking into how two Bronx friends, 11-year-old Alfa Barrie and 13-year-old Garrett Warren, were found dead in New York City in an apparent drowning accident after a search for their bodies.
On May 12, the New York Daily News reported that the boys were reported missing, with Alfa’s body found in the Hudson River that same day and Garrett’s body found in the Harlem River the following Thursday, May 18.
The Bronx boys, both of whom were seen by witnesses who last seen them climbing through a hole in a fence along the East River, were pronounced dead, but only Garrett’s death in the Harlem River was ruled an accidental drowning by medical examine who disclosed the autopsy. Alfa’s body, on the other hand, that was found in the Hudson River, his death has yet to be determined, News 12 Bronx reported.
A video shows that the boys were with a third child during the incident.
Alfa’s death struck a chord with a group called Guineans Succeeding in America, which raised money on GoFundMe in an effort to have his body buried in what could be his homeland and to afford his surviving family a trip to Africa, the Daily News reported.
“The mother is extremely devastated and will need significant support from us,” the group wrote on a GoFundMe page. The boy’s older brother Ibrahim was vice chairman of the group, it said.
A memorial service was planned at the Futa Islamic Center in the Bronx, though no funeral is currently scheduled for Alfa, a sixth-grader at Democracy Prep Harlem Middle School who once lived on E. 167th St. in the Bronx.
Garrett, was described by those close to him as a goofy child who loved football, Monopoly, science, and Jolly Ranchers, and a hard worker who dreamed big, attended NEST+M, attended an elite STEM-oriented school on the Lower East Side with a rigorous enrollment process.
On May 21, the academically inclined young man, just like Alfa, had a memorial service, but it was outside of his building on W. 143rd St..