‘SHE TOOK THREE BULLETS’
3 teens shot in Roxbury during Fourth fireworks
Gunshots rang out in Roxbury during neighborhood Fourth of July fireworks, wounding three teens and leaving one crying out for her mother’s help, the victim’s horrified family members said yesterday.
“She was on the ground, she said, ‘Mami, mami, mami, why me?’ ” Carmen Villalona, 49, told the Herald in Spanish.
Her daughter, 19, is one of three victims who suffered non-lifethreatening injuries in the shooting. Villalona said her daughter was shot in the stomach and was scheduled for surgery at Boston Medical Center yesterday. A 17-year-old boy was taken to Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a 14-year-old girl is being treated at Children’s Hospital, police said.
“She doesn’t leave the house, she doesn’t go out, she doesn’t like to,” Villalona said of her daughter. “She went out last night because her friend came to show her her new baby.”
The two women had been admiring the newborn when the shots were fired, Villalona said.
Kimberly Harrison’s niece was also shot.
“She is 14 years old, going to high school, out here enjoying fireworks, I don’t know what transpired over here, but there were guys and girls out here enjoying the fireworks and in the meantime there must have been something going on,” said Harrison, 41, as she stood in falling rain on her mother’s front steps. “When they started shooting, the kids started running and she took three bullets.”
The girl was shot in the leg and twice in the arm, Harrison said, and was in surgery yesterday. She said at least six young people were outside watching fireworks set off around the neighborhood.
Boston police spokeswoman Rachel McGuire said police did not release any information about possible suspects, but said the shooting did not appear to be random.
“Whoever it was, was shooting someone and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Betty King, the grandmother of the 14-year-old victim. “It’s just crazy, just crazy. I’m talking but it hasn’t really set in on me that she got shot. I can’t believe it. I just can’t understand who they were shooting at.”
Witnesses who live in the housing complex said they did not know the 17-year-old victim.