Two innocent passersby were shot and wounded in the Bronx Tuesday, just blocks away and less than 24 hours after a teenage girl was killed when she rode her scooter into the crossfire of rival teen gangs, according to police and law enforcement sources.
Two gunmen ran up to a group of males at the corner of East 163rd Street and Washington Avenue in Melrose and opened fire at around 4:45 p.m., police said.
But the gunfire instead wounded two people in a passing car — including an 11-year-old boy.
The boy was cut by shattered glass and a 20-year-old male driver was shot in the left shoulder, according to cops and sources.
The driver was taken to Lincoln Hospital where he was listed in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries, according to the NYPD.
The boy was also treated at Lincoln for minor injuries.
The suspects fled on Citi Bikes following the shooting, cops said.
The victim’s car was one of two vehicles riddled with bullets in the chaos, according to photos from the scene.
A white Infiniti G37X sedan was parked beneath a tree next to a Municipal Credit Union building with a bullet hole the size of a golf ball punched through the rear window. Another sedan abandoned nearby had its rear window nearly completely blown out.
There have been no arrests and the investigation is ongoing, police said late Tuesday.
The gun violence erupted around the corner from the Morrisania schoolyard, where 16-year-old Evette Jeffrey was shot in the head and killed while riding her scooter Monday evening.
Evette had been celebrating her one-year anniversary with her boyfriend when she was shot by a boy who opened fire following a fistfight between young alleged gangbangers.
A 14-year-old boy was arrested Tuesday morning for the fatal shooting, which cops said was gang-related.
Investigators are still searching for a 12-year-old accomplice who allegedly handed the baby-faced killer the gun.
The deadly dispute between rival street gangs — Forest Over Everything and the upstart crew Kreep On Davidson based at the Davidson Houses housing project — stemmed from a scuffle earlier in the day, sources said.
It was unclear late Tuesday if the two shootings were related, but sources said cops were investigating whether Tuesday’s shooting was gang-related and involved teens.
The Bronx has recently been plagued by gun violence that has claimed the lives of victims caught in crossfire.
In late April, two innocent bystanders were gunned down in as many days. A trailblazing Harlem bodega owner and community fixture — Excenia Mette, 61 — was fatally shot in the head when she ran outside to check on her grandson. Barely a day had passed when Daoud Marji, a 28-year-old plumber’s apprentice, was shot and killed in another stray bullet shooting.
Read the full article here
