CAMBRIA HEIGHTS, Queens (WABC) — Police are searching for a gunman after a 13-year-old boy was shot in the head in Queens on Monday, leaving the victim in critical condition.
It happened in the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts on Linden Boulevard in Cambria Heights around 8:21 a.m.
Surveillance video shows a boy running into a deli, appearing to tell other kids what happened. They come outside, stunned and upset.
Detectives also recovered surveillance video that indicates the shooting was targeted. Police say the suspect came up to the victim and his friends on a scooter, and after words were exchanged, he fired one shot, striking the victim in the head.
“I just heard ‘pop’ and then I saw kids running down the block,” said a witness named Ronald Blain. “When I went outside, I saw the kid on the floor. I knew something was going on, and usually they are fighting, but then when I saw the kid laying down, I said nah, that don’t look right and then that’s when the ambulance came, and they picked him up and he didn’t look too good.”
The victim was taken to Cohen Children’s Medical Center in critical condition.
Blain works security at a McDonald’s at the intersection of Linden and Springfield boulevards, where sometimes the fights between the kids from three nearby schools escalate. He’s tried to de-escalate them.
“They fight every day. Everyday they’re out here and you got the little gang members and the kids fighting and I try to talk to them but it’s horrible,” Blain said. “What else can you do? They’re our future. Some listen, some don’t.”
It’s not clear why the victim may have been targeted. Neighbors remember another boy who died at the same intersection. The corner was renamed for 13-year-old innocent bystander, Kevin Miller, who walked out of McDonald’s and into gang-related gunfire16 years ago.
“It’s another 13-year-old kid, right on this same corner,” Lance Feurtado said.
Feurtado is the executive director and founder of the Kings of Kings Foundation, a group that tries to diffuse violence at notorious spots like this around the city where kids hang out after school and help get them home safely. He says they are wary of any possible retaliation after something as horrific as this.
“Whatever it is, we’re going to make sure it stops here,” he said.
Eyewitness News contacted the mother of Kevin Miller, who said she is praying for the boy who was shot on Monday, and his family, saying she knows all too well what they are going through.
Meanwhile, police say the suspect ran away from the scene. He is described as a man with an afro wearing a white hoodie and white sneakers and a backpack with the word “Jaws” on it.
No arrests have been made so far, and the investigation is ongoing.
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