The mother of a 12-year-old boy shot dead while riding his bike to a Bronx bodega is endorsing Republican Saritha Komatireddy over incumbent Attorney General Letitia James, accusing New York's top law enforcement officer of chasing national headlines while children die on her streets.
Migdalia Martinez appears in a six-figure campaign ad now running on cable TV, streaming platforms, and digital sites, holding a photo of her son Jacob Freytes and delivering a message that lands harder than any opposition research file. Jacob was killed by a stray bullet outside Wanda Deli Grocery on Elliott Place near the Grand Concourse in the Bronx's Mount Eden neighborhood on July 25, the New York Post reported. He had biked to the store to buy a ball, police said.
The man charged in the shooting, William Ferrer, pleaded not guilty at a recent court appearance. Ferrer has at least a half-dozen prior arrests stretching back to 1999. He is accused of opening fire during a street dispute outside the bodega, and Jacob, who had nothing to do with that dispute, was caught in the crossfire.
A child with a retired NYPD Detective Sergeant for a father, killed by a repeat offender's bullet while doing something as ordinary as buying a ball. That is the failure Martinez wants voters to see.
In the 30-second spot, Martinez speaks directly to the camera:
"Four teenagers were shot in the Bronx in one week, and they said it's the safest summer on record."
She continues, holding Jacob's photo:
"This here is my son, Jacob. He was shot and killed riding his bike to buy a ball. Letitia James has time for national politics, just not for the Bronx."
Martinez closes the ad with an endorsement that carries weight precisely because it comes from someone with no political resume. "I'm not political, and neither is Saritha," she says. "When I met her, I heard somebody who wants change. Saritha is the only person I'll vote for."
The ad also features an image of James alongside Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a pairing the Komatireddy campaign plainly wants voters to associate with the city's public safety record. James and Mamdani have clashed politically in recent months, but the ad frames them as two sides of the same leadership failure.
Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn's Eastern District who handled cases involving international terrorism, cybercrime, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and public corruption, met Martinez shortly after Jacob's death. A mother of four herself, Komatireddy later brought Martinez to an event on Long Island where President Trump embraced the grieving mother and vowed to get tougher on crime.
In a statement to the Post, Komatireddy framed the race as a referendum on James's record:
"Families like Migdalia's have paid an unbearable price while New York's leaders have failed to make public safety the priority it should be. Letitia James has had almost eight years in office and the resources of a statewide law enforcement agency, yet she is failing these families."
She added: "New Yorkers are tired of excuses, tired of being told this is normal, and tired of leaders who look the other way while innocent people pay the price. Migdalia deserves better. Jacob deserved better. Every family in New York deserves better."
James took office in 2019 and is seeking a third term. She is described as heavily favored to win re-election, which makes the Martinez endorsement less a polling event than a moral indictment, one that is far harder to answer with a press release.
An unnamed spokesperson for the James campaign responded by pointing to the attorney general's gun-removal record and redirecting blame toward federal policy. The spokesperson said any life lost to gun violence "is one too many" and called removing illegal guns and holding traffickers accountable James's "top priority."
The spokesperson then went after Komatireddy's ties to the president:
"Saritha Komatireddy is backed by Donald Trump, whose policies have gutted federal gun trafficking enforcement and funding for community violence intervention programs that keep neighborhoods like the Bronx safe. Attorney General James will keep protecting New Yorkers in the Bronx and across the state regardless of who is attacking her for political gain."
James's office claims to have taken more than 9,500 guns off New York streets and secured more than $9 billion from individuals and corporations, including more than $3 billion from opioid manufacturers and distributors and more than $70 million in settlements from neglectful nursing homes. Her campaign website boasts of suing the Trump administration more than 50 times "to protect New Yorkers' rights and funding for critical programs like healthcare, public education and good-paying jobs."
Those are big numbers. But they raise a question the James campaign did not address: if the attorney general commands a statewide law enforcement agency and has removed 9,500 guns, why is a 12-year-old boy dead from a stray bullet fired by a man with arrests going back a quarter-century? James has faced federal scrutiny over whistleblower allegations about how her office sets enforcement priorities, claims that add context to the criticism that she has focused more on national political targets than on street-level crime.
James's tenure has been defined far more by her high-profile legal battles against the former and current president than by any visible crackdown on violent repeat offenders in New York's most dangerous neighborhoods. She personally prosecuted Trump and his company. She commissioned the sexual misconduct probe of former Governor Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat, that triggered his resignation; Cuomo denied any wrongdoing. She has filed suit alongside Mayor Mamdani to block Trump administration policies.
None of that kept Jacob Freytes alive. And Martinez's blunt accusation, "Letitia James has time for national politics, just not for the Bronx", is difficult to rebut with a list of lawsuits filed against a sitting president.
The James campaign's response is revealing in what it does not say. It does not mention Jacob Freytes by name. It does not address Ferrer's long arrest history. It does not explain how a man with at least a half-dozen prior arrests dating back to 1999 was free to open fire on a Bronx street in broad daylight. Instead, it pivots to federal policy and labels the endorsement a political attack.
James has also faced legal challenges to federal subpoenas directed at her office, and a retaliation lawsuit that was recently dismissed, all of which paint a picture of an attorney general entangled in political and legal conflicts far from the sidewalks where children are getting shot.
Jacob Freytes was the son of a retired NYPD Detective Sergeant. His father, Jesus Freytes, spent a career in law enforcement. His mother is now spending her grief in a campaign ad, not because she is political, by her own account, but because she believes the people in charge failed her son.
Ferrer, the man charged in Jacob's killing, has a record that stretches back more than two decades. He pleaded not guilty. The legal process will determine his fate. But the political question Martinez is asking does not require a verdict: How was this man on the street?
Komatireddy is a long shot against a heavily favored incumbent. But the Martinez ad is not really about winning a poll. It is about forcing a conversation that New York's Democratic establishment would rather not have, a conversation about whether an attorney general who spends her political capital on national lawsuits and partisan probes has anything left for the families burying their children in the Bronx.
When a mother has to go on television to remind the state's top law enforcement officer that her 12-year-old was killed buying a ball, the system has already failed. The only question left is whether anyone in power cares enough to admit it.
