A grief-stricken family came together on the East Side of Bridgeport hours after receiving the worst possible news.

Myron Dukes, 48, was born in the PT Barnum community but was raised on the East Side. He was found shot in the head in the back seat of a Range Rover that crashed into another vehicle in Queens around 4:15 p.m. Wednesday.

"My heart dropped because he did too much to be taken out like that. That's not ... he had so much more fight left in him," said Letitia Dukes.

Myron Dukes met with Sen. Richard Blumenthal back in May after he published a book about the assassination of President John. F. Kennedy.

Myron Dukes told News 12 Connecticut's Frank Recchia at the time that he was enthralled by Kennedy and felt "scared and scarred by the dark hours in American history that followed his death."

"They assassinated Malcolm X, then Dr. Martin Luther King, then Robert F. Kennedy -- so it was, like, a five-year span where evil was just prevalent," said Myron Dukes.

Longtime family friends Tony Barr and Dawn Spearman said losing Dukes at 48 is "a cruel twist of fate."

"We're losing so many young people; there's so much evil in our community -- it's a disease of the heart," said Barr.

They say Myron Dukes worked hard through his activism to make the city of Bridgeport safe for all families.

"We worked together to try and stop -- bring families together, bring children together -- and stop this violence," Spearman said.

The NYPD says the driver of the Range Rover fled on foot after the crash, but what led up to the fatal shooting is still under investigation.

Myron Dukes said he was proud to be a "returning citizen, whom News 12 interviewed on many occasions about the way he had turned his life around after prison and devoted himself to helping young people stay off the street.