The 13-year-old gangbanger who was shot dead amid a raging Bronx street war wanted to leave the Crips in the days before he was killed, grief-stricken pals told The Post on Tuesday.
“Two weeks ago we was with him, and he was telling us how he was tired of this gang stuff. He wanted to get some money and get out of the ’hood,” said a 16-year-old female friend of Jaryan Elliot, the Crips member who was fatally shot Sunday in revenge for a gang slaying four days earlier.
Jaryan’s pal lamented that gangs are so revered in the area that her little brother boasts he’s in one, even though he’s not.
“He is only 10 years old. He is saying that he is in a gang,’’ she said. “He thinks it’s cute, but I tell him he is not in no gang. He is only 10 years old.”
Jaryan was one of three teens killed in The Bronx within five days over the past week during what a law-enforcement source told The Post was a “major gang war.”
Jaryan’s former girlfriend said she tried to warn him about being in a gang.
“I even tell my own brother to stay out of these streets. I said, ‘I’m telling you because I love you, and I know you are in a gang, too,’ ” the 14-year-old ex told The Post on Tuesday.
Jaryan “was a Crip,” the girl acknowledged.
“I just be telling him, ‘You in a gang, you don’t know who is in the car with you, you don’t know if they’d run up on you, you don’t know what they have.
“They are over here wearing ski masks, you can’t see nobody’s face,’’ she said.
But “it’s hard to get out of the gang. You gotta get beat up to get out,” the teen said.
“I don’t know why they did this because he was so young,’’ she added of Jaryan, referring to his broad-daylight slaying.
“He was the youngest of all of them. July 29th, he would be 14,” she said of her doomed gang-member ex, who had only just graduated middle school.
The teen said Jaryan — who had been arrested eight times, including for robbery and assault — spent time at a juvenile-detention center and seemed to be on a better path afterward.
“Ever since he out, he’s being doing good, doing his school work,’’ she said of the 13-year-old, still speaking about him in the present tense.
Law-enforcement sources have told The Post that Jaryan was murdered in revenge for the gang-related killing of 19-year-old Tyquill Daugherty on Wednesday in Crotona in The Bronx.
Jaryan is believed to have been at the scene at the time although not the triggerman.
His ex-girlfriend said she was told Jaryan was headed to fix a Moped with a male pal when he was gunned down. She said she was with someone who got a phone call saying he was shot and rushed to the hospital.
“They said he was shot and he wasn’t breathing. At first I didn’t believe it,’’ the 14-year-old said. “Then it popped up on Citizen app, and we saw it on Facebook. That’s when I realized it was no joke.
“I started believing it when people started showing up at the hospital — his mother, his girlfriend and other gang members were there.
“[His mother] couldn’t walk. … When they pronounced him dead, she came out screaming and crying.”
A new photo of the dead 13-year-old was posted inside the lobby of his family’s apartment building Tuesday with the words, “Long Live Jaryan.” A piece of paper also was taped up that had messages written to the boy, including, “R.I.P. No More Pain.”
The 16-year-old pal recalled Jaryan being a friendly face when she first moved to the neighborhood.
“We used to chill, go to the park, have fun,’’ she said.
“He was overprotective of his friends. He’d text people and ask if we are good, ‘How did you sleep, did you eat.’ He was a beautiful soul. He cared about people,’’ she said.
“It hurts me that this is his first teen year. He had a long life to live,’’ the heartbroken teen said.
“He didn’t get to live it. He didn’t even made it to high school.
“A gang changes your life forever,” she said.
Jaryan’s ex-girlfriend said she now warns others “to stay out of these streets.”
“These streets don’t love nobody nowadays,” she said. “I stay in. I used to go out more, but I only go out once in a while now.”
The superintendent of a building near where Jaryan lived said he has already asked for a transfer from the area over the rising crime in the neighborhood.
“It’s too much,’’ said the Hispanic worker. “I come here to work and make money and go back to my country. But the people here, they want easy money.
“I talk to my manager to give me transfer because it’s not safe. She said she will find another building. I don’t like over here. … A lot of gunfight in this area — a lot.”
The third teen killed in the recent gang violence was Ramon Gil-Medrano, a 16-year-old affiliated with the 800 YGz, or “Young Gunnaz,’’ gang, according to cops and sources.
He was fatally shot about eight and a half hours after Jaryan’s slaying — in retaliation for the 13-year-old’s death, sources have said. Gil-Medrano was at the scene when Jaryan died, although it is not clear whether he shot him, according to sources.
“Oh my God, they are young, very young,” lamented the local building super, referring to the three victims.
