Joseph Owusu and Javits Frimpong
President John Dramani Mahama is urging the United States to tackle the growing challenge of gun violence following the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Ghanaian student Javits Frimpong in New York.
Speaking during an engagement with the Presidential Press Corps after his return to Ghana, the President said the killing is particularly heartbreaking given the student’s age and the fact that he had been in the United States for barely a year after joining his father.
“The issue with Javits Frimpong, he is a young man, I mean 15 years old, and he had just been in the United States for barely a year to join his father, and this happened,” President Mahama said.
“We don’t yet know exactly what the cause of it is. Some ascribe it to bullying, but of course the NYPD is investigating it.”
President Mahama also referenced another recent death which also happened in the Bronx.
“Just two days ago, they discovered another Ghanaian murdered. His body was found in a dump site. This is a 24-year-old man murdered. Before that, another Ghanaian had been killed,” he stated.
President Mahama reiterated that the American people would have to reckon with the violent nature of their society, especially gun violence.
He raised the issues of mental health becoming a major crisis amid the stress factors of modern living.
“Sometimes somebody is going through stress. You don’t know. He’s well dressed, everything is fine. You think everything is normal. The day you realise that there’s something wrong with him, he has a gun in hand, and he’s shooting all his colleagues at his workplace, or he goes into a school and starts shooting children,” he disclosed.
“So, I think that one of the issues America has to deal with is the level of gun violence in their society.”
He added, “I don’t believe it’s only Ghanaians being killed. I’m sure other people are suffering the same fate. So it’s something that Americans need to deal with.”
President Mahama commended the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its intervention in facilitating the travel of Javits’ mother to go and grieve her son’s death, and the support given to the family.
“I want to commend the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their intervention in facilitating the travel of Javit’s mother to go and grieve her son’s death, and also the support that they gave while we were away. The Deputy Minister, was in charge, and I think he discharged himself well in terms of supporting the family,” he said.
“Again, in New York, the mission visited the family and expressed condolences, and the minister has informed the mission to do whatever they can to support the family.”
Many Ghanaians have called for a thorough investigation and urged New York authorities to bring those responsible for Javits’ killing to justice.
Javits Frimpong, 15, was fatally shot in the abdomen on Thursday, October 29, 2026, while walking to school in the Bronx, New York.
He was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he later died.
He had moved from Ghana about a year earlier to join his father, Thomas Frimpong, a taxi driver, and was a 10th-grade student at DreamYard Preparatory School.
The NYPD says three hooded suspects wearing surgical masks approached him near Crotona Park. Javits dropped his backpack and ran, but was chased and shot. The attackers reportedly picked up their shell casings, jumped a subway turnstile and fled on a southbound No. 5 train.
Investigators are weighing three possible motives: bullying, robbery, and mistaken identity. Police say they have found no indication Javits was involved in gang activity.
His father has said two students had recently been suspended after allegedly bullying his son at school. The NYPD is seeking a subpoena to obtain school records on the reported incidents.
No arrests had been made as of the latest police updates. Students at DreamYard Preparatory School staged a walkout on Monday, November 2, to protest bullying and gun violence.
His mother, Doris Adu Gyamfi, travelled to the US on Wednesday, November 4, after US President Donald Trump intervened to grant her an emergency visa to attend her son’s funeral.
Few days later, Joseph Owusu, 24, was reportedly found dead at a dumpsite in the Bronx on Tuesday, November 3, about two weeks after he went missing.
Owusu, who worked as a caregiver supporting persons with disabilities, served as an organist and chorister at the Ghana United Methodist Church in the Bronx.
A scrap collector reportedly found his body among refuse. The circumstances surrounding his disappearance and death remain unclear. An autopsy is being conducted, and Ghana’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York has visited his family to convey government’s condolences.
No official police account has yet confirmed whether his death involved criminal activity, and nothing has linked it to Javits’ killing.
By Prince Fiifi Yorke