Texas tourists and dogwalker among 26 people shot in bloody NYC weekend

Two tourists and a woman walking her dog just blocks away were among a dozen people shot Sunday across New York City during a dizzying display of gun violence that continues to frustrate local leaders.

Another five people were shot on Saturday in separate incidents. Nine people were shot in six incidents the day before.

Three of the shootings were fatal.

Hardly a weekend has gone by this summer without someone getting shot in at least one of the five boroughs, but it is the victims who were unintended targets that has officials most alarmed

“The amount of shootings we witnessed is unacceptable, and we’re going to continue to be as aggressive as possible to go after these dangerous people that our court systems are continuing allow out,” Mayor Adams said on Monday.

Police released no information on any of the suspected shooters over the weekend.

The victims included a woman who was shot while walking her dog near Bristow and Jennings streets in the Bronx, police said.

Mecoria Bridgewater, 22, said she’d just left a store shortly before 9 p.m. and was walking toward Chisolm St. when she saw a group running in her direction. A second later, she heard gunfire, then noticed a white Honda Civic speeding by.

“I figured it probably wasn’t anything more than firecrackers, and then I heard another shot. So that’s when I started running,” Bridgewater said.

Bridgewater said she hurried off the street with her Yorkshire Terrier and hid behind an SUV until she realized she had been shot in her left calf.

“I looked down, and I just saw blood coming out,” she said.

Bridgewater said a witness from a nearby home sent her husband down to carry her to safety, and waited in their home until an ambulance arrived.

Bridgewater’s mother, Rohonea Bridgewater, said she had to put on a brave face for her daughter.

“I was nervous and trying to be calm,” she said. “Because she was like, ‘Mommy a car was coming, a white car and I got shot.’”

Bridgewater said she didn’t get a look at the gunman and that the bullet passed right through her leg.

“In and out, no damage to anything,” she said. “Other than the pain, I’ve been relaxing, and I couldn’t really sleep much, so I’ve been tossing and turning.”

Police believe a man dressed all in black, including a hoodie, opened fire on the Honda Civic. Bridgewater was an unintended target.

The shooter, accompanied by another man on a Citi Bike, then headed east‚ blasting at several men outside a Southern Blvd. bodega, police say.

It was there that a mother and her teenage daughter from San Antonio, Texas were struck by gunfire when the shooters missed their targets yet again, police sources said.

Sources said the 13-year-old girl, her brother, another sibling and their parents were in the area visiting family when bullets started flying.

“Mom!” the son yelled, according to a witness. “They are shooting!”

The mother instinctively ducked down with her daughter, but not quickly enough to avoid the fusillade. The mother was hit in the chest and right arm. The girl may need surgery to her thumb after a bullet ripped through a tendon in her hand, sources said. She was also grazed on her neck and left leg. Both were taken to Jacobi Medical Center in stable condition, police sources said. Efforts to reach the Texans were unsuccessful.

After peppering the bodega with the bullets the Citi Bike shooter rode across the intersection and into northbound traffic on Southern Blvd., crashing into a NYPD cruiser, police said. The suspects were still at large. Police recovered at least nine shell casings.

The Bronx shootings were just one part of a violent weekend that kicked off on Friday, close to 7 p.m. in Queens, where a gunman opened fire in Far Rockaway, hitting a 28-year-old woman in the upper body and a 44-year-old man in the arm. The woman’s children, 2 and 5 years old, were not struck.

At 10:22 in Staten Island that day, a 44-year-old man was shot and killed and a 28-year-old was struck in the leg when a gunman opened fire on Bowen St.

And just before midnight on Friday, a 31-year-old man was shot dead in front of 907 Teller Ave., just a block from Bronx criminal court.

Sunday’s other shootings included a 32-year-old woman who showed up at Richmond University Medical Center at about 5 p.m. with a gunshot wound to her right cheek., and a 74-year-old woman shot in the abdomen outside the Pink Houses in East New York at about 6:30 p.m.. All are expected to survive.

Later that night, at about 8 p.m., four people were shot, including a 16-year-old who was hit in the head, at Livonia and Rockaway Aves. in Brooklyn.

Just before 11 p.m. Sean Tinsley, 34, was shot and killed in front of the King Tower Houses on W. 115th St. near Malcolm X Blvd. Police suspect the incident was gang-related.

The weekend spree ended 15 minutes later in Brooklyn, where a man was shot and wounded on New York Ave. near Foster Ave. in East Flatbush.

Bridgewater was thankful to still be alive and had just one wish.

“If any way possible, get justice for me and the people that got shot,” she said.

With Michael Gartland