A wild Lower East Side shooting in broad daylight on Tuesday left a 15-year-old boy wounded and patrons of a nearby bar scrambling for cover.
Photo by Dean Moses
A wild Lower East Side shooting in broad daylight on Tuesday left a 15-year-old boy wounded and patrons of a nearby bar scrambling for cover.
According to police sources, the mayhem unfolded at around 5:25 p.m. when a group of men began opening fire at the corner of the intersection. Reminders of the gun violence were scattered all over the corner of Bowery and Stanton streets, with bullet casings on the roadway, and bloody clothing strewn on the sidewalk.
A bartender at nearby Bar Veloce said that patrons hit the ground terrified as soon as the shots began ringing out.
“Everyone ducked. I was in the back and I ran to unlock the basement door because I know other bartenders were out there,” he said. “The police arrived really fast and got the situation under control.”
When officers from the 5th Precinct arrived, they found a 15-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the left leg. EMS rushed the victim to Bellevue Hospital for treatment; he is expected to survive.
Meanwhile, police also took two men into custody for questioning. amNewYork observed one of these arrests as one man was patted down and placed in the back of an NYPD cruiser. Charges are still pending the results of the ongoing investigation, authorities said.
Another witness, who identified himself as Mike, said he watched two men crouch behind cars and open fire on the teen.
“They were kind of like ducking back and forth, not exactly sure what led up to it, but it sounded like fireworks at first. And then it kept going and going and going. Then you see the kid screaming,” Mike recalled. “He tried to pull off his clothes, because he was shot somewhere in the leg he was in like sweatpants or whatever, so he tried to pull off his clothes, like bloody clothes and stuff.”
Mike also stated that the gunmen stayed at the scene, even after the teen was left wounded.
The investigation remains ongoing.
