3 injured by stray bullet while riding city bus in the Bronx: NYPD
One woman suffered a graze wound to the chest and two others were injured by glass when a bullet crashed through the window of a city bus in the Bronx on Saturday afternoon, police said.
The BX4 was at Westchester Avenue and Tinton Avenue at 3:21 p.m. when a man who was fighting with someone at 756 Union Ave. fired at another vehicle and missed, striking the bus instead, cops said.
The woman, 59, was grazed and two 67-year-olds were injured by glass, police said.
They were taken to Lincoln Hospital in stable condition, cops said.
A witness told The Post the broad daylight shooting began when a man in a red shirt, long shorts, and wearing a white headscarf and white mask parked his car at the corner of Union Avenue and East 156th St., got out and opened fire.
“As soon as he jumped out of the car he started shooting,” said the witness, who noted the shooter appeared to chase a man who had been walking along Union Avenue.
The pedestrian began running, and so did the shooter, the witness said, describing how both went in the direction of Westchester Avenue — putting their bullets on a collision course with the bus before the gunman ran back to his car and drove off.
“I never saw anything like this in my life. It happened so fast,” the witness said. “We had customers in here. When the man started shooting they went down on the floor. Some of them run into the kitchen. I went to the floor too. I was scared. Everybody was scared.”
It was the second time Jose Pabon’s bus has been shot up while he was driving — with Saturday’s gunfire coming on just the second time the 11-year MTA vet was on this route of his regular line.
The first time was “eight or nine years ago,” the 60-year-old told The Post, recalling that a bullet came through the window while he was driving, and he “felt it skin my ear.”
He thought Saturday’s shooting took place on his bus, “that’s how loud it was.”
“It’s a scary feeling. Like today, I was really scared because I thought the gunman was inside the bus shooting,” he said. “It’s bad what’s going on here. It’s real bad. These people don’t want to stop with the guns.”
Pabon said he’s going to take a few days off.
“I need to relax from this,” he said, but added that he doesn’t want to change routes. “I’m not going to let this scare me.”
But the longtime Bronx resident and father of five is “tired” of living in the borough because of the violence.
“I tell my wife all the time let’s get out of the Bronx.”
“Police are investigating a shooting that occurred on Westchester Avenue in the Bronx resulting in three bus riders being injured, two by flying window glass,” NYC Transit President Richard Davey said.
“Preliminary investigation reveals that shots came from the street and involved a dispute between people not on the bus,” he said.
“This is another reminder that gun violence has no place in this or any city, that it can victimize innocent bystanders, and we are grateful no bus passengers appear to have been seriously hurt.”
The latest violence comes just a day after a 5-year-old girl was shot and critically hurt at a vigil in the borough, left neighborhood residents shaken.
“How do they get to these guns? They got more artillery than these cops,” one woman told The Post.
“Oooooh lord thank God it wasn’t me. I feel sorry for the person who got shot. But I’m glad it wasn’t my family or me.”
“We are scared,” she added.
“We are scared in the nighttime, we are scared in the daytime, we are scared all the time.”
