New York Daily News

Teen hit by stray shot while doing schoolwork in her home

- BY HARRY PARKER AND THOMAS TRACY

A 10th-grader doing her homework at the dining room table was shot in the leg by a stray bullet that entered her Queens home late Tuesday, and her worried father urged city leaders to do something about the out-of-control violence.

Tamima Samira, 15, was studying for finals shortly before 11 p.m. when a wild shootout erupted outside her Jamaica home.

Her alarmed dad dialed 911, and shortly after he placed the emergency call, a bullet tore through the front door, striking the girl in the leg.

Medics took her to Cohen Children’s Medical Center, where she was listed in stable condition.

More than 20 shell casings were recovered by cops at the scene.

“This is not anybody’s single problem,” Tamima’s father, Mohammad Hossain, said on Wednesday about violent crime. “This is the whole community’s problem, our whole country’s problem. So we have to think about, everybody, how to solve this problem.”

Cops later determined “multiple people” were firing off rounds outside of the home when the bullet hit the child’s house and struck her in the shin.

Hossain, who works in real estate, said he spent the night at the hospital with his daughter. He recounted that she is walking but acknowledg­ed her recovery will be a mental one, as well.

“They are innocent, so we have to protect them,” Hossein said.

The father said he heard some noise outside and several gunshots before he realized his daughter had been hit and was bleeding.

Tamima was treated and released. She appeared to be in good spirits based on a note she left for reporters on the front door, just inches from where the bullet struck.

“Hey besties, girl who got shot here!” the handwritte­n note said. “I have no comment. Come back after the Regents for a statement.” There have been no arrests. The shooting was the latest in a string of violent outbreaks that have city residents on edge.

“New Yorkers must be safe in their own homes,” NYPD Commission­er Keechant Sewell tweeted. “Every NYPD resource is being utilized to find those responsibl­e for the shooting on 113th Road in Queens last night that resulted in a 15-year-old girl being struck.”

This is at least the second time in two weeks a Queens resident was wounded by a stray bullet entering their home.

On May 30, Margaret Henry, 72, was struck in the upper right arm after a bullet pierced her living room window at her home on 128th St. by 107th Ave. in South Ozone Park.

She was treated at Jamaica Hospital and released. No arrests have been made.

The 106th Precinct, which covers the neighborho­od where the Henrys live, has had five shootings in which five people were hit as of May 29, not including that incident. That’s up from three shootings in which four people were targeted in the same timeframe last year.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States