Shocking surveillance footage shows the moment two kids were trampled by a man as he tried to duck and escape bullets fired by a shooter who opened fire in the middle of a Bronx street on Friday. The chilling video shows the shooter firing more than a dozen rounds of bullets and then pointing his gun at the terrified kids, according to police.
The shooter reportedly fled the scene immediately after firing the rounds randomly at the pedestrians. The NYPD released the video on Friday afternoon and asked for the public's help in identifying the gunman in the latest of nearly 150 shootings across the city this month.
Moment of Terror
The video shows the gunman appearing from nowhere and then opening fire at the pedestrians, with two kids caught in between. The video opens with a boy and girl, who are believed to be around the ages of five and 10, walking on a sidewalk before people scatter when the gunman chases a man in a red sweater.
Police believe that the man in red sweater was the intended target. However, he soon realizes that and tries to take cover and trips on to the two children and knocks them down in the process. The gunman then runs up and starts firing at that direction.
The alleged target scrambles to his feet but trips in the three-person scrum before crawling over the kids to escape the hail of bullets. The footage shows the 5-year-old boy's legs shaking in fear at one point amid the bloodshed, while the man in red sweater tries to escape the bullets being fired from the opposite direction.
For a moment, the two children are also seen pinned under the man in red sweater. The older girl is seen grabbing the boy and holding him tight to protect him from the hail of bullets.
Narrow Escape
The mayhem occurred on Sheridan Avenue near Mt. Eden Parkway — right outside the little kids' apartment building — just before 7 p.m., police and sources said. According to reports, the two children were out to buy candy but unfortunately were almost about to lose their lives in the gunfire. The shooter fled on a scooter after firing the rounds, police said.
Luckily, none of the children were hit but the man in the sweater was shot three times — once in the back and once in each leg. He was privately taken to Bronx Lebanon Hospital, where he was in surgery on Friday evening, police said. He is expected to survive, according to the NYPD.
This is the latest brazen act of violence in New York City - where shootings have skyrocketed since the pandemic gripped the country. The NYPD said it doesn't have a motive for Thursday evening's brazen attack, and believe the man in the red sweater was the intended target and the children aren't related to the victim and were just walking in the area when the shooting started.
The parents of the children talked to police but were too scared to file a complaint in the case, law-enforcement sources said. Police believe that the 24-year-old man who was the intended victim was taken to the hospital in a white Lexus with temporary New Jersey plates, which was later found abandoned near the hospital, according to sources.
It is not clear if its temporary plates were legal. On Wednesday, NYPD brass and the mayor announced a crackdown on illegal paper plates to try to curb shootings, since gunmen's getaway cars frequently use them.
