Family and friends of a beloved Harlem bodega owner and grandmother — fatally shot in a hail of bullets meant for someone else — marched to the site of her death Saturday, chanting “Say her name, Momma Zee” and remembering her as the “Mayor of Harlem.”
About 30 marchers walked from 145th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard down to West 113th Street, placing a white wreath and lighting candles outside of Excenia Mette’s building before praying, singing and speaking with love about the victim.
“My grandmother should be here,” said heartbroken grandson Jarian Jordan Jr., 24. “We have to stop the senseless gun violence.”
Mette, 61, was shot outside her building when a bullet intended for someone else struck her in the head.
“This pain is like no pain I’ve ever felt in my life,” Jordan said.
The event started farther uptown at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Sharpton and his granddaughter joined the marchers.
A close friend and coworker of Mette, Stacey Moyler, spoke at the vigil and remembered calling her the “Mayor of Harlem.”
“Let me tell you about this boss, because this woman is a boss,” Moyler said.
“I remember we were driving in my car up Seventh Avenue, and we stopped at the light and then somebody screamed, ‘Momma Zee.’ I said, ‘Girl, you the mayor of Harlem?’ And then we’re driving and she’s waving, we stop at the next light, “Momma Zee, call me,” I said, ‘You are the mayor of Harlem.’”
Darious Smith, 23, was arrested in connection with the fatal shooting.
Smith was believed to have exchanged shots with the still-at-large gunman whose stray bullet hit Mette in the head as she went outside to check on her grandson, police sources said.
Smith lived near Mette’s former business, Momma Zee’s Food to Plez Deli, which was the first black woman-owned bodega in the city when she opened it in the 1980s.
“She should be alive today,” Ashley Sharpton said of Mette. “She should be alive to tell her own story. She came outside looking for her grandson who is standing here with us today. … She didn’t deserve this.”
“Momma Zee was special to all of us,” Al Sharpton said.
“She would feed the people of this neighborhood,” he said. “Her sister said the day of the rally, that she probably fed and clothed the people that ended up shooting her.
“Let us use this as a wake up call. We’ve got to stop this gun violence, in Momma Zee’s name.”
