Teen facing attempted murder for shooting tourist, firing at cop
NEW YORK — The 15year-old migrant boy who shot a tourist and opened fire on a cop in Times Square faces two counts of attempted murder and will be charged as an adult, police said Saturday.
The teen, whose name is being withheld because of his age, also faces assault and weapons possession charges for the gunplay at the Crossroads of the World Thursday evening.
The Venezuelan immigrant, who came to the U.S. in September, is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Saturday.
He’s accused of taking a shot at a loss prevention officer inside JD Sports on the corner of West 42nd Street and Broadway around 7 p.m. Thursday when the female security guard stopped them from leaving the store with items they intended to steal, cops said. Police said the items were either a jacket or some shoes.
His shot missed the guard, but struck a 38-yearold Tatiele Riberio, who was in line to buy a pair of sneakers.
“I felt a lot of pain but didn’t know where the pain was coming from. It was a scary moment,” she told NBC 4 during an interview Friday. “I started checking myself. I looked at my leg and saw blood dripping down. But I was able to stay calm.”
Riberio was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where she was treated and released.
The teen, clad all in white and armed with a .45 caliber handgun, ran out of the store toward West 47th Street and then into sidewalk-level a passage between West 47th and West 48th streets at 1211 Sixth Ave., the home to Fox News studios. A police officer chased him on foot.
“The perpetrator goes in there, he fires one time at our officer,” New York City Police Department Chief of Patrol John Chell said at a press conference Friday. “Our officer draws his weapon but he cannot fire. There are too many people around.”
The teen kept running and fired a second shot at the officer from under his armpit, Chell said. The officer did not return fire in that situation, again because too many people were present, Chell said.
Chell said police showed “great restraint” in not returning fire at the teen shooter.
“That officer was well aware of the danger that firing that gun on a crowded, busy street could potentially inflict,” Detective Bureau Assistant Chief Jason Savino said Friday.
The teen ran into the subway system and disappeared, but cops and the U.S. Marshals tracked him to Yonkers on Friday, where he wept openly while being placed in handcuffs. The teen’s mother was present when he was taken away.
Cops apprehended two other teens that were shoplifting with the gun-toting suspect, but they were released as cops build a case against them, officials said.
The teen shooter lived with his family at the Stratford Arms on West 70th Street on the Upper West Side — a 10-story building and former SRO with more than 100 units that now houses migrants.
“He’s a very calm kid who went to church with his parents,” an Ecuadoran shelter resident who said he works as a commercial painter and did not want to give his name told the Daily News Friday.
“He was never any problem. Very tranquilo,” said the Ecuadoran man. He added: “I never saw him with any other kids. I always saw him alone.”
Cops on Saturday were trying to determine if the teen’s gun was used in a Jan. 27 armed robbery in the Bronx and a shooting in Bryant Park on Jan. 25, police said.