Carlos Solano was supposed to take his mom to a 9/11 commemorative event to honor the memories of three of her co-workers who died at the World Trade Center after the terrorist attack.
Instead, he became another reason for her to mourn on that day.
Cops said Solano, 43, was shot and killed Wednesday on a Queens sidewalk after a dispute with another man.
The afternoon shooting erupted just hours before Solano was to accompany his mother, Enerolisa Castro, 65, to see the Tribute in Light commemoration that fills the Lower Manhattan sky with blue beams at dusk every Sept. 11.
On Thursday, Castro told the Daily News the already sad anniversary now will become unbearable.
“Yesterday he called me and he said ‘Mom, I’m gonna go out with you tonight’,” Castro said a day after the shooting.
Castro, a nurse, recounted she and her son were to see the lights and then go out to dinner. “I said, ‘Ok I’ll be ready by 5′,’ she recalled.
But her son never came to pick her up. Instead, she got a call from police saying Solano had been shot around 4:30 p.m.
According to police, a 4:33 p.m. 911 call brought cops to Humphreys St. and 25th Ave. in East Elmhurst, where the victim was found with a gunshot wound to the head.
Police sources told The News an argument between two men had exploded on the sidewalk, ending with the assailant pulling out a gun and shooting the victim in the forehead. The gunmen fled on foot, the sources said.
Solano was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Since the deadly encounter, there have been no arrests, although police did bring a person of interest in for questioning before releasing him. Police sources said the slaying is being investigated as a possible domestic dispute.
Castro said three of her coworkers, also nurses, died in the Twin Towers on 9/11.
“They went to the towers to have breakfast and I was supposed to go with them,” Castro said of that horrifying day. “But me being lazy, it was my day off. They left me. When I went to the job, everybody was screaming. Three of my coworkers died.”
She said she was spared for a reason.
“I escaped death,” she said. “I have my grandkids. I adore all of them. God wanted to give me a little bit more time.”
She wishes her son had gotten more time.
“Why would you take somebody that is so special to me?” she said of the killer. “Why did you take my diamond? My diamond in my life. I feel destroyed. I still cannot accept that he’s dead. 9/11 now for me it’s forever.”
Police are asking that anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.
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