Exclusive: Father Speaks After Daughter Is Nearly Killed By Stray Bullet, Police Arrest 16-Year-Old For Shooting
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A person of interest has been arrested in the stray bullet shooting of a 16-year-old in Queens.
Police said late Wednesday night that a 16-year-old has been arrested regarding the shooting of Ashley Ermoogan. He has now been charged with attempted murder, two counts of assault, reckless endangerment, and criminal possession of a weapon.
As the NYPD announced the latest developments, CBS2 was hearing for the first time from the family of that young girl – who was shot by a stray bullet outside her school in Monday afternoon.
She was the second of two teens caught in crossfire in the neighborhood in two days.
MORE: 16-Year-Old Girl Randomly Shot In Queens Has Bullet Lodged Near Artery
Her father spoke exclusively to CBS2's Ali Bauman.
"I try not to think about it, what if something worse happened to my daughter you know?" Ravi Ermoogan said.
Ermoogan is grateful beyond words his daughter Ashley is back home safe.
Monday afternoon the 16-year-old student was walking out of New Dawn Charter High School on 161st Street.
"She said she seen some guys fighting and she walked across the street… She heard a gunshot, when she heard the shot she run, when she was running she heard the next shot and she kept running and then she fell. She couldn't go anymore when she fell she realized she feel for her jacket and she was bleeding," the father said.
Police say the gunman ran away. Ashley was rushed to a nearby hospital
"When I got there she was just crying, just lying there keep crying telling her mother she got shot."
For two days, doctors monitored the bullet lodged in Ashley's left shoulder – too close to an artery to be surgically removed.
"It's a life or death situation… It's not an inch it's like a hair… Me and my wife were just by her side the whole time," Ermoogan explained.
"I just stand there thinking what can I do and there's nothing I can do."
On Wednesday, Ashley was still too shaken to go on camera, but showed us the small bandage covering her wound.
"It changed her a lot. She's scared to go to school and now I ask her stuff and she's not focusing because she's in so much pain," the father added.
"She's not going back to that school and I'm not sending her back to any school around there."
Just two miles from where Ashley was shot, 14-year-old Aamir Griffin was killed by a stray bullet two days earlier while he was playing basketball.
Investigators believe both shootings may have stemmed from an ongoing feud between two groups of teens.
Police released video of three persons of interest in both investigations.
"I hope they catch them and get them off the streets so it can be a little more safe," Ashley's father said.
The NYPD is still investigating whether or not the Monday stray shooting of Ermoogan is related to the deadly stray shooting of Aamir Griffin.
The Ermoogan family says they sent their daughter to New Dawn Charter High School because they thought it was in a safer neighborhood. They told CBS2 they are now looking to move out of New York City entirely.
