A 6-year-old girl was rushed to a Newark hospital with a reported gunshot wound to the chest and two adults were struck by gunfire — just hours after a pair of cops were shot in the city.
Newark police said the shooting that injured three people took place just before 7 p.m. near the corner of South Orange Avenue and South Ninth Street, NBC New York reported.
Witnesses recalled hearing a barrage of gunfire and later seeing multiple shell casings littering the ground outside the Reservoir Towers apartment complex.
Three people, including a 6-year-old girl and two men, were struck by bullets.
The child was seen being carried from the back of a patrol car by an officer who then rushed her in his arms inside University Hospital.
A woman believed to be the girl’s mother was observed emerging from the cop car and screaming at police to save her child, according to News 12.
The two male victims were brought to the same hospital moments later.
Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Frage said the young girl suffered a collapsed lung but was expected to recover.
The two adult males were also expected to survive.
Investigators so far have not shared any details about the circumstances of the shooting, and no arrests have been made.
A fed-up neighbor who returned home to find crime tape and shell casing markers outside her apartment building called on Newark Mayor Ras Baraka to crack down on the spiraling crime in the city.
“This madness has to stop,” Malenda Hamlett said. “I’m asking you, Mr. Mayor: Put a stop to this, man, because it has to stop! You need to put your foot down. We need you out here, bro! Put a stop to this!”
The gunfire that injured the girl erupted just hours after two police officers were shot at a close range by a suspect they were trying to arrest outside an apartment building near the Newark airport.
One officer was struck in the leg, while the other was hit in the neck and shoulder. Both were taken to University Hospital for treatment and were expected to recover.