Results tagged “bullet”

A 66-year-old Harlem woman became the second victim of stray gunfire this week in NYC. Virginia Valree was walking along Lenox Avenue in Harlem around 3:30 p.m. yesterday, carrying potatoes to deliver to a sick friend, when a bullet struck her left leg and knocked her into traffic on West 135th Street. "I'm horrified. All I know is I was just standing there and my leg gave in," Valree told the Daily News from her hospital bed last night. "I was on the ground. I was laying there saying, 'Somebody stop the traffic!' because I didn't want to get run over."

Thank goodness: The mother of the 11-year-old boy whose head was hit by a bullet says her son is fine. Devante Kelly had been waiting to play his Little League game at Starrett City in Brooklyn when an apparently stray bullet hit him. Andrea Walters said of son Devante Kelly, "He's fine, I just want everyone to know he's fine and not to worry. He was up and talking through the whole thing like it was nothing." According to the NY Times, the bullet "traveled under the skin for less than an inch, and then come to rest against the skull, hitting it with enough force to put a small depression or dent in it but not enough to break it." Brookdale Hospital neurosurgeon Dr. Louis G. Cornacchia said, "This was as an act of God that this child was not more severely injured. This is not the result of my gifted hands. He was saved long before I ever entered the picture." Devante's mother said she hopes her son will be back to playing soon—she doesn't want him to be afraid—and City Councilman Charles Barron said, "Anybody that has information on this, if you don't want to snitch, tell me - I'll snitch. This is very, very sickening in our community."

A total no-brainer: The family of 17-month-old boy who was shot in the arm by an off-duty police officer has filed a notice of claim against the city. The Porcellini family will also pursue action against the NYPD and 24-year-old police officer Patrick Venetek.