A 14-year-old juvenile was arrested after turning himself and his mother into an NYPD precinct. He reportedly admitted to wounding his friend after shooting him in Brooklyn while playing with a gun.
According to the NYPD, the teen turned himself in at the 73rd Precinct with his mother on Tuesday and was charged with attempted murder for shooting the 12-year-old on the night of Jan. 31.
The names of those involved were not released due to their age. According to NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig, the victim and his friends, all under the age of 16, were hanging out in the lobby of a building on Bristol St. near Dumont Ave. in the Brownsville neighborhood when one of them began playing with a .380-caliber pistol.
The teen had removed the magazine and forgot there was a round in the chamber, Essig said. He then pointed it at his friend and pulled the trigger.
The victim was shot in the left shoulder and his friends scattered. The wounded man was rushed to Maimonides Medical Center in stable condition, the Daily News reported.
All charges are mere accusations, and the persons prosecuted are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Young people are increasingly central to New York’s gun violence as victims and perpetrators, particularly in shootings and knife attacks. An NYPD report in September found that recidivism among teens had increased dramatically over the past five years, and the number of gunmen and their underage victims had tripled.
Brownsville is one of the six neighborhoods with the highest incidents of gun violence currently in New York. Last week’s “Mayor’s Management Report” highlighted that more than a quarter (27%) of the city’s shootings occur in just 6 of the 77 police precincts, all of which are in The Bronx and Brooklyn.