2 Teens In Stable Condition After Being Shot And Wounded In Prospect Park
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police in Brooklyn were searching for a gunman Monday who shot two teenagers in Prospect Park.
The teens were there with family and friends as part of a music festival when bullets started flying around 9:15 p.m. Sunday, witnesses said.
Kersha Thompson told CBS2's Diane Macedo that one second she and her 14-year-old nephew, Jordan Lewis, were leaving the fun-filled Caribbean music festival to go to his grandmother's house. The next second, there were gunshots.
"He was a couple of footsteps behind me, and I hear 'pop, pop, pop,'" Thompson said.
"When I walked back, the whole crowd was around him. He got shot in his side, in his bottom and on his foot."
Lewis was laying on the ground near Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue. Nearby, her neighbor's 16-year-old son, Aakif Murray, also had three bullet wounds.
Murray's mother said she had just arrived home from work when she got the news.
"I dropped to my knees and I pray, and I ask God for those two kids to be OK," she said.
Emergency responders rushed the boys to New York Methodist Hospital with serious injuries, but CBS2 has learned they are now in stable condition.
But Thompson said when she tried to join her nephew in the ambulance, more violence ensued.
"The captain was there. I was like, 'That's my nephew.' So he push me back," she described. "So when he push me back, I chuck him back off. And then he jump over the two EMT who was there and the officers, and he punch me in my face.
"(The swelling) is going down a little bit. I still have the band on my hand from the hospital."
Thompson said police still won't let her see her nephew.
Meanwhile, both women insist the boys were innocent bystanders.
"I'm not sugarcoating anything," Thompson said. "There was no dispute. There ain't no Crips; there ain't no Bloods; there ain't no gang."
"He's a good student in school," Murray's mother said of her son. "Not one time my son's name is in the precinct."
Police had said earlier the shooting started with a dispute, but they now say they don't believe that's the case. They're still investigating to find the shooter and a motive.
Police said they are also looking into Thompson's allegation about being struck.