By Antonio Planas -
NBC News
A man was shot Friday after a verbal confrontation in a Texas parking lot, and died while carrying a cake to celebrate the birthday of one of his 6-year-old daughters, who was waiting nearby at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.
Calogero Duenes, 24, was fatally wounded
after a fight with a driver
who immediately fled the scene, as a video captured by surveillance cameras shows.
Calogero Duenes holds daughters Serina, right, and Mallory, left Capture via NBC News
Police said the suspect drove the wrong way through the parking lot and nearly ran over Duenes.
The video shows how the two exchange words.
A moment later,
three shots were heard
, a witness told police.
Duenes stumbled into the restaurant in the city of Humble, Texas, where he collapsed, according to his sister-in-law, Rosemarie Uresti, on Wednesday.
"
I am very sorry for my nieces,"
said Urresti, 18, "now they have to grow up without a father."
He was a good father, he did everything for them, "said the woman.
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Amber Uresti, 25, mother of the girls and wife of the deceased, told the local television channel KPRC that she did not understand that someone reacted with senseless armed violence, especially when
her husband was defenseless.
"It's a tragedy. I really can't understand it. I'm hurt. I can't understand how someone can do that to someone who is holding a cake," Uresti said.
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"My husband died without me, without someone to hold his hand to console him.
I want justice.
I want justice for my daughters, for Calogero," she told the channel.
On a GoFundMe help page that was organized for Duenes, Rosemarie Uresti wrote that her entire family "is devastated by this tragedy."
"He left behind two girls, Serina Divine Duenes, 6, and Mallory Elizabeth Duenes, 3.
We did not expect to start the new year like this
," adds the message.
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Duenes and his sister had been a couple for a decade, and according to her, he was always protective and a consummate prankster.
The man worked as a gardener and helped neighbors with their lawn and any needs, his sister-in-law said.
Neighbors insisted on paying him, but Duenes often did not accept the money, he added.
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According to Uresti, the compassion he showed with neighbors and friends was the same with which he treated his daughters,
whom he pampered a lot.
"He said: 'I didn't have this as a child. My daughters are going to have it," he explained.
Uresti said her 3-year-old daughter is too young to understand what happened, but her 6-year-old daughter knows what happened to her father.
"
Selina cried herself to sleep the other night
. Hugging her father's shirt, she said: 'I miss my father so much," she concluded.
