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Innocent teen murdered in gruesome gang initiation...

A Connecticut teenager visiting his dad in The Bronx to go shopping for school was gunned down yesterday in a random drive-by shooting being eyed as a gruesome gang initiation, a police source said.

The victim, Tashawn Bromfield, 16, had been working out all summer to get in shape for football tryouts at Francis T. Maloney HS in Meriden, Conn., where he lived with his mother, Dionne Johnson-Russell.

"That was his dream," the teen's devastated dad, Basil Bromfield, told The Post, of his son's goal to play with the Spartans.

"When I found out he was shot, I told the police, 'This can't be possible. He wasn't a kid who even knew people who did drugs or had guns.' "

IN WRONG PLACE: Bronx murder victim Tashawn Bromfield, 16, with his mother, Dionne Johnson-Russell.

Tashawn was hanging out in the courtyard of his dad's house on Fenton Avenue in Baychester drinking a Slurpee with his friend Daijon Powell, 16, and another teen when two shots rang out from the passenger side of a sedan cruising by.

A bullet struck Tashawn in the chest and the high-school junior stumbled away screaming before collapsing behind a tree.

"My neighbor called me and said there were shots on Fenton Avenue," said Powell's mom, Winifred Powell, 46. "I ran downstairs and heard my son yelling, 'Mom, come quick!' My son saw his friend take his last breath.

"He is really shaken up. My son couldn't sleep all night; he lay in bed crying and shaking."

Tashawn was pronounced dead at Jacobi Hospital shortly after the 12:40 a.m. shooting.

The teen's father, who worked for Coca-Cola until being laid off last year, said that the pair had planned to go shopping for school supplies, get Tashawn a haircut and visit relatives before the teen returned to the suburbs tomorrow.

"I saw him 20 minutes before he was shot," Basil said. "The only reason I left him was because he was such a good kid and he was with two other good kids.

Johnson-Russell was inconsolable.

Reached at home, she told The Post, "I'm in his room and I'm sitting in his chair where he used to play video games. I'm touching his pillow."

Ironically, she had moved her two daughters and Tashawn to the safety of the suburbs and away from the crime.

"We moved when he was 6. He wasn't a city kid," she said...