Three teens shot — one fatally – in bloody night amid troubling escalation of youth violence in NYC

The shooters, and their New York victims, are getting younger.

The NYPD reported four gun violence incidents this week where city teens were either the shooter or the victim, with one suspect arrested after opening fire on a city cop as police crime statistics show the number of pistol-packing New York youths skewing in the wrong direction.

The 2023 surge comes after 157 victims under the age of 18 were either killed or wounded by gunfire last year, an increase of 20 incidents from 2021, according to NYPD statistics shared with the Daily News.

“It’s getting worse,” a 15-year-old Brooklyn student told The News. “It’s a real thing. Before quarantine, nobody was doing all of this . People are dying in front of the school. That’s not cool.”

A Thursday shooting outside a Bronx Police Athletic League center left a 15-year-old boy mortally injured, with the victim dying Friday in Lincoln Hospital. He was identified late Friday as Josue Lopez-Ortega of Laconia. It was one of two Thursday incidents where teenagers landed in a gunman’s crosshairs, the Daily News has learned, with a 15-year-old also shot and wounded Thursday in Brooklyn.

Detectives are trying to determine if the two teens shot as they left a basketball game at the Longwood PAL facility were hit by stray bullets or targeted by a masked gunman who remains at large. A 16-year-old boy was struck in the leg and survived.

NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig, in a radio appearance late last year, laid the blame on an increase in youth gang violence and social media taunting that escalated to violence. According to the NYPD, the number of teen shooting victims has more than doubled since 2017.

But city educators and students said increased security was part of the solution to increased safety for young New Yorkers.

“There should be more metal detectors,” said a 35-year-old Brooklyn school employee. “There is a lack of school safety in the building. Every morning when I come in I’m like, ‘God, please get me home safe.’”

Brianna, a 17-year-old senior at Brooklyn Ascend High School, agreed she’s seeing an increase in teen gun violence.

“We’ve got to do better, for real, for real,” she said. “We’ve got to put the guns down.”

Mark Rampersant, who oversees school safety and prevention, said student well-being is “the absolute top priority” of the public school system.

Each school has access to a social worker or school-based mental health clinic, and can lock all doors aside from the main entrance, city officials said. The school system also recently rolled out the $9-million initiative Project Pivot, which partners high-needs schools with organizations in their communities like violence interrupters and “safe corridors” during students’ commutes.

“Our schools remain sanctuaries for our students,” said Rampersant. “Weapons and other dangerous items are unequivocally prohibited in our schools, and we work closely with our entire school community, including NYPD School Safety Agents, to keep our classrooms and our students safe.”

In Thursday night’s shooting, witnesses told police that the gunman fired at least three rounds into a crowd outside the PAL center. The younger teen fell to the pavement while the older one stumbled around the corner and away from the gunfire, police sources said.

Neighbors said this was the second time a shooting had erupted near the PAL center in recent months.

“It was safe back then, but now it’s a new situation,” said one neighbor. “My grandson goes to school here. I worry for him and his little friends.”

At the same time in Brooklyn, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the arm outside the Eagle Academy for Young men in Brownsville, police said.

The teen had just left a basketball game at the school and was nearing the corner of Herkimer St. and Saratoga Ave. at 8:52 p.m. Thursday when gunfire erupted, cops said. The victim, shot in the arm, was treated and released at Kings County Hospital, police said.

A 17-year-old boy with a pistol was arrested at the scene, but it was not immediately clear if he was the shooter. The teen was charged with gun possession, cops said.

On Wednesday afternoon in Queens, a 13-year-old boy was arrested for shooting two teens during a brawl outside the Campus Magnet High School in Cambria Heights.

He allegedly shot a 16-year-old girl in the right ankle and a 14-year-old boy in the right leg, with both victims expected to recover. The suspect was charged with assault, weapons possession and reckless endangerment and was ordered held at a juvenile detention facility without bail.

Early Tuesday, a 16-year-old boy was arrested for opening fire at two cops in the Bronx, police said, with Police Officer Paul Lee struck in the arm.

Speaking at St. Barnabas Hospital where Lee was being treated, Mayor Adams said Tuesday’s shooting “clearly emphasizes that too many young people have too many guns in their hands.”

“Our job is to create a pathway to stop that,” Adams said.

— With Cayla Bamberger