NYC boy, 8, struck by stray bullet moments after getting off school bus: cops
An 8-year-old boy shot and wounded in the Bronx was struck by a stray bullet just moments after he got off his school bus, cops said Wednesday — as the alleged gunman was hit with attempted murder charges.
The child was walking with his grandmother — who lives across the street from the bus stop on Beekman Avenue in Mott Haven – when two men strolled past them, according to authorities and police sources.
One of them suddenly began to fight with a third man, chasing him around a car with a gun in-hand and then opening fire, the sources said.
But instead of hitting his intended target, the gunman – identified by cops as Joshua Brooks, 27 – shot the boy in the thigh, police said.
The young victim told his grandmother he’d been shot, and a good Samaritan drove them to Lincoln Medical Center, where the boy was listed in stable condition, cops and sources said.
The bullet remained lodged in the boy’s thigh Wednesday – but he was alert and able to speak to cops about the chaotic scene, according to sources and his mom.
“My baby is super, super tough and in very good spirits, he’s talking to everybody,” the mom, who was not identified, told WABC. “He’s actually describing and telling the story of what happened to detectives and stuff, but he’s really OK.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, officers scouring the area spotted two men who fit the description of the suspected shooter and the man he’d been with walking out of St. Mary’s Park and began to chase after them, police said.
Cops found Brooks hiding in the back of a nearby building – in the grass behind a fence – and took him into custody, police sources said.
The other man jumped over a fence, ran across several rooftops and then came back down, snatching a a T-shirt off a clothes line and changing into it before trying to climb into an apartment through a window, according to the sources.
He didn’t make it inside the home as cops caught up to him and took him into custody, the sources said. He was ultimately released without charges.
The loaded gun was found on a nearby rooftop, the sources said.
In addition to the attempted murder rap, Brooks was also charged with assault, assault on a person less than 11 years old, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a firearm, cops said.
He was awaiting arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court on Wednesday.
The boy was not the first child shot in the borough this summer.
A 5-year-old girl was struck by a stray bullet in the back while she sat in a parked car in the Olinville section at the end of June.
