Boy, 11, shot in the arm at NYC public housing complex — near other kids as young as 6
An 11-year-old boy was shot inside a Brooklyn NYCHA building late Monday — with four other children as young as 6 nearby, cops said.
The injured child told police he was on the third floor of a Brownsville Houses building on Howard Avenue near Atlantic Avenue around 11 p.m. when he was shot in the left forearm, authorities and law-enforcement sources said.
The boy initially said he was shot outside the building by a man wearing a hood, but that didn’t add up when investigators followed a blood trail back upstairs to an apartment, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters Tuesday.
“We believe that this possibly happened in the hallway,” Kenny said. “We’re still sorting through it. At this point, it could be accidental, it could be self-inflicted. But we’re still looking through it.”
Several children and adults were inside the apartment, including the boy’s mom and children ages 6, 12, 14 and 17, Kenny said.
“We’re trying to sort out whether they were playing with the gun,” he said. “Was it intentional, or was it unintended?”
A 9 mm gun was recovered, Kenny said.
The pre-teen – who lives in the Pink Houses in East New York – was taken to Maimonides Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition.
The violence came weeks after a 2-year-old boy was struck in the right buttock by a stray bullet at East Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse in The Bronx.
Freddy Flores, 20, was charged with attempted murder in connection to the shooting of the toddler, police said.
In early March, Tyrell Williams, 17, also was charged with murder in the deadly Bronx shooting of Laquai Dash, 17, over a social media spat between the high schoolers’ girlfriends, authorities said.
