{"id":321281,"date":"2026-08-14T13:52:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/321281\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:52:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:52:48","slug":"bronx-boy-13-in-shooting-that-left-pal-riley-billingslea-dead-was-saved-by-cellphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/321281\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronx boy, 13, in shooting that left pal Riley Billingslea dead was saved by cellphone"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 13-year-old boy who was grazed when a teen gunman shot and killed his\u00a015-year-old friend<\/a> in a Bronx apartment told the Daily News he was saved by a cell phone \u2014 the bullet ricocheting off the device in his hands after it exited his slain pal\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

The teen said he was sitting next to his friend, Riley Billingslea, when another boy, 16, fired off the round inside the Castle Arms apartment building in Kingsbridge Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

The bullet that killed Billingslea struck the phone the 13-year-old boy was holding, altering the round\u2019s trajectory so it grazed his chest instead of passing through it, the teen said.<\/p>\n

The News is not naming the 13-year-old victim because the shooter remains at large.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I hadn\u2019t been holding my phone, I would have lost my life,\u201d the emotional teen told The News during an exclusive interview at his mother\u2019s Bronx apartment Thursday night. \u201cEveryone at the hospital said I was lucky to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AsiahDamaged phone pictured when a 16 year-old playing with a gun fatally shot 15 year-old victim in an apartment on Claflin Ave in the Bronx. (Kerry Burke\/New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The teen said he and his friends were \u201changing out\u201d in the apartment when the shooter began horsing around with the black handgun in the Claflin Ave. apartment building near W. 197th St. There were about a half-dozen teens in the apartment at the time of the shooting, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the house. (He) was playing with the gun, a black gun,\u201d he said. \u201cWe told him to take the magazine out of the gun, but he wouldn\u2019t listen to us. I was sitting next to Riley. I was right there next to Riley.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next thing the teen knew, his ears were ringing, and his friend was covered in blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was checking myself and I saw the blood,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to see that. So I just left. I\u2019m so sorry. It\u2019s emotional. Riley didn\u2019t deserve that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AsiahTeen was wounded when a 16 year-old playing with a gun fatally shot 15 year-old victim in an apartment on Claflin Ave in the Bronx. (Kerry Burke\/New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Police sources said Riley got into a quarrel with the 16-year-old shooter, who opened his backpack, pulled out a gun, put a magazine in it and fired about 5:20 p.m.<\/p>\n

The 13-year-old said he wasn\u2019t sure whether the pair had been arguing, but that he heard the teen shooter say, \u201cI\u2019m going to throw the pain,\u201d before a shot rang out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was shocked when he did it to Riley,\u201d the teen said.<\/p>\n

After the shooting, he fled for his life, saying, \u201cI got out of there so fast, I left my cell phone and my shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teen\u2019s mother shared an image with The News taken by detectives at the scene of her son\u2019s damaged phone, which had spider-web cracks radiating out from a bullet hole in the screen as the device lay next to a pool of blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he hadn\u2019t had the phone where he had it, it would have been over,\u201d the boy\u2019s mother said. \u201cI wish it were only that way for the other family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riley died at the scene. He lived with his grandmother in an apartment just under a mile away from the Castle Arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just boys playing,\u201d the 13-year-old said. \u201cAnd then suddenly I saw the gun. And then he shot Riley.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TeenTeen was wounded when a 16 year-old playing with a gun fatally shot 15 year-old victim in an apartment on Claflin Ave in the Bronx. (Kerry Burke\/New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The wounded teen was treated at St. Barnabas Hospital after fleeing to his home.<\/p>\n

He and Riley met about three years ago. The slain teen attended John F. Kennedy High School.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a good person \u2014 and he didn\u2019t have to go down like this,\u201d Riley\u2019s anguished grandmother Elaine Rogers said. \u201cHe was witty, had an answer for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shooter ran off and has not been caught. No gun was recovered from the scene, police said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 13-year-old boy who was grazed when a teen gunman shot and killed his\u00a015-year-old friend in a Bronx…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,261,265,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-321281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-sub-county-region","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}