A 4-year-old girl and two women have been shot during a local dispute in Times Square of New York. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said the shooting incident occurred on Saturday around 4:55 pm at 45th Street and 7th Avenue. He added that police officers patrolling the area responded immediately they heard gunshots and are still on the lookout for the suspects.
The 4-year-old girl is from Brooklyn and was shopping for toys with her family when the incident occurred. She was shot in the leg and was rushed to Bellevue Hospital where she might undergo surgery. One of the other two women is a 23-year-old tourist from Rhode Island, and the other is a 43-year-old woman from New Jersey.
The tourist was shot in the leg and the New Jersey woman was shot in the foot, and both were transferred to Bellevue Hospital for treatment. The three gunshot victims are not related to one another and had nothing to do with the dispute before they were injured; they were just going about their own businesses, CNN reports.
Eyewitnesses said an argument broke out between four or more people and one of them pulled his gun and fired gunshots. Video footage released by the police shows one suspect walking away from the dispute after gunshots were fired and people ran helter-skelter. Police authorities said the man is a person of interest and is being investigated at the moment.
Police officers combed the scene and found three shell casings that are believed to be from a .25 caliber gun. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned the shooting and called it “senseless violence” and added that while illegal guns must be stopped from coming into the city, the shooters must be arrested for prosecution.
NYPD’s Dermot Shea said gun trafficking has increased lately in NYC despite the fact that the authorities have seized a large cache of weapons in the last two years. He blamed the increase in illegal guns on bad policies.
“How many more kids do we need to be shot before we realize that bad policies have consequences, and we need action and we need policies regarding laws that have consequences,” Shea said.
Source: nj.com
