In an evening that featured more bullets and bloodshed for two NYC neighborhoods, 10 people in Harlem and Queens were shot — including four teen bystanders in a park — in separate incidents that spanned just a matter of hours, police said.
Gunfire erupted on the bustling Harlem block at West 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard just before 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, police said, leaving two people shot in the leg. At least eight bullet casings were found as a result of the shooting that occurred steps from a bus stop and several stores.
At least one of the victims, a 48-year-old woman, was believed to be an innocent bystander, police said. Witnesses said she's a local street vendor, who was struck in the left leg. The other victim, a 20-year-old man, was hit in the right leg after he was involved in a fight with the alleged shooter.
Both victims were taken to nearby hospitals, and both are expected to survive. The suspect was seen wearing a white hooded sweatshirt, and ran north up the boulevard from the scene.
Get Tri-state area news and weather forecasts to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York newsletters.
A little later in the evening, just after 6 p.m., bullets rang out in Queens, this time in a playground off Atlantic Avenue and 88th Street in Ozone Park, police said. Witnesses said that the shooting played out in front of several children and families at the time.
Four people ranging in age from 15 to 32 years old were shot in the gunfire, according to police — and none of them were considered to be the intended target. Three of the four were struck in the leg, while a 16-year-old boy was shot in the back. All four are expected to survive.
"It was chaotic. All the kids were running out, they were crying. The parents were crying, we were trying to calm the kids down because they actually witnessed people getting shot in front of them," said Sam Esposito, president of the Ozone Park Residents Association.
News
Neighbors believe that the shooting was gang-related, as they said that violence has repeatedly been interrupting their lives in recent months.
"This is the fifth shooting in Ozone Park I'd have to say since November or December. It's just been a constant flow," said Esposito. "The residents of this community fear for their lives."
Another shooting in Harlem took place hours later, police said, this time around West 117th Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard. In that incident, which occurred around 11:45 p.m., four men were shot while on the street corner.
All four were taken to hospitals, with one said to be in critical condition and requiring surgery. Police officials said that all four individuals had been previously known to the department. An investigation into a possibly motive for the shooting is ongoing.
In each of the shootings on Tuesday, no arrests had been made.
The sudden spate gun violence also extended across the Hudson River and into New Jersey, as two more people were shot in West Orange. That late Tuesday afternoon shooting on Watson Avenue left one of the victims dead, and another hospitalized, according to police.
