By DENISE BUFFA
She says she did everything she could to keep her son safe from the same mean streets that claimed her father's life 21 years ago.
But now, Zelita Mighty can only cry as she tries to understand how her oldest child, 16-year-old Carvett Gentles, changed from an earnest Boy Scout to the accused gang banger charged with mistakenly shooting an innocent 15-year-old girl in The Bronx last week.
"What happened?" she wailed during an interview with The Post in her Morrisania apartment. "They just take him and carry him, carry him with them."
Gentles was charged with attempted murder in the shooting of Vada Vasquez.
"I'm so sorry -- so, so sorry," Mighty sobbed, saying she wished she could trade places with Vasquez, who was critically injured. "She's so beautiful."
Her son, a quiet kid by all accounts, was with his cousins, suspected gang leader Clivie Smith, 19, and Cleve Smith, 20; the boys' uncle, Rohan Francis, 18; and a fifth man, 23-year-old Dwayne Taylor -- all of whom have also been charged.
Prosecutors have said Gentles confessed to his role in the retribution shooting, but Mighty insists her son couldn't have pulled the trigger.
"He don't have the heart," the 37-year-old mom said. "Zico [Carvett's nickname] can't even hold that gun because Zico good."
The distraught mom says it's been a constant struggle to keep her boy from the block at East 169th Street and Boston Road -- known for drug dealing and gunfire. It's where her own father was shot nine times in the back when she was a teen.
In July, Mighty says, she noticed a sudden change in Gentles, who would proudly bring home attendance and science awards, play with his younger siblings, and cook them bully beef and rice after school.
"Everything just stopped. Everything just stopped," she said.
Neighbors warned Mighty that older men sometimes hid guns in the younger kids' school bags. So she began searching her son's and his 16-year-old cousins' belongings, warning that she would call the cops if she found any guns.
"No, no, Mommy, I'm not doing that," she says her son would tell her.
Earlier this month, she says, she asked about putting Carvett in the Job Corps, where he could finish school and learn a trade. Now, she watches helplessly as the terrified teen faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of attempted murder.
Although she forgave the man who killed her father, Mighty can't forgive herself for the plight of her son.
"I tried, but not enough," she said. "Look where he is right now."
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