11-Year-Old Hit by Stray Bullet in Newburgh

An 11-year-old girl was shot in the hip as she and her mother were unloading groceries from a taxi in Newburgh last Friday, authorities and their family said.

The girl had gotten out of the cab at about 10:30 p.m. on Benkard Avenue when several gunshots rang out, police and neighbors said. She was almost safely inside her home when she was hit by a stray bullet that went through the family's front door. 

The shots were fired by an unknown gunman nearby, police said. Neighbor George Powell was watching TV when he said he heard about 10 to 11 gunshots.

Several residents' cars were also hit in the shooting spree, which is believed to have started on Lincoln Street. 

"My mom had fell and my sister was in the house, and then my sister came back out. And my mom tried to push my sister into the house and that's when she got hit," said the girl's brother, Michael Robinson. 

The girl was taken to the hospital to get stitches for the wound. She was walking around by Monday and is going back to school later this week, but her family is scarred. 

"For me, it makes me angry. For my mom, it's terrifying," said Robinson. "[My sister] is acting like she's normal but I know she's scared." 

Robinson's sister and mother declined to be interviewed, fearing retribution. The shooter is not in custody. 

The girl is the first person to be shot in Newburgh this year, a small city in the Hudson Valley where, according to crime statistics, people are almost four times as likely to be a victim of crime than anywhere else in New York state. 

Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat whose district office is half a mile from the shooting scene, says adding police officers and cracking down on gang activity is turning things around in what has been called New York's most dangerous city.

"This is not unique to Newburgh. We have a gun violence problem in America. Newburgh is moving in the right direction, but one is too many," he said Monday. 

"The community needs to get involed, to catch these shooters and to stop this from happening in the future," he said. 

Neighbor Derrick Williams said, "Bullets have no names. Around here, you don't know what to expect at times."