Six male adults, aged between 20 and 40, who were shot in Fordham Manor on the south end of St. James Park on Wednesday night, Aug. 7, are expected to survive, police said.

 

During a press conference held on Morris Avenue on Wednesday night, Assistant Chief Benjamin Gurley, commanding officer of Patrol Borough Bronx, said the group of six were shot at 191st Street and Morris Avenue. He said based on a preliminary investigation, the shooting unfolded at around 8.15 p.m.

“There’s several people hanging out under the scaffolding next to me, to my left,” Gurley said. “Two males, one with a helmet, one without, come through St. James Park. They park a scooter in the park. They come up the stairs to my right. They fire approximately nine rounds at the group hanging out, striking six people. All of our victims, five males in their twenties, one male in his early thirties, all shot [are] not likely to die.”

 

He said the victims were all shot in different parts of their bodies, one in the stomach, one in the right hand, one in the groin, one in the right leg, one in the torso, and one in the right arm.

Gurley said when police arrived, there were just two victims at the scene, two other victims had fled in a vehicle, then flagged down EMS and were taken to an area hospital, and two other victims walked into two different hospitals, one in Queens and one in The Bronx.

 

Asked about a motive, Gurley said, “No, motive at this time. We’re still trying to figure that out. We’re trying to talk to victims. There’s victims in surgery right now, then there’s victims that aren’t in surgery, but our detectives are spread out throughout the hospitals, trying to interview and find out.”

 

Asked if the victims were cooperating, Gurley said, “Some are. Some aren’t.” When asked if the shooting was gang-related, Gurley said that was not yet known.

We spoke to one young woman who declined to be identified, along with her mom, on 191st Street and asked her if she had witnessed the shooting. She said she heard it as she lives on the first floor of a building that faces onto Morris Avenue but said there was some scaffolding blocking her view of the street, aside from some holes where she could see through.

 

“I heard a loud boom and then I went out to the window, and I looked,” she said. “You can’t really see because it has this thing. So I just moved my little potted plant that I have inside and I happened to look outside and I all I can see is, like, somebody’s feet coming from another car.”

 

“All I saw was their feet,” the young woman continued. “Like their whole body was under the car but just their feet was coming up and then, well, she (my mom) was outside, so I called her, and I was like, ‘Mom, where are you?'” The young woman continued, “And so then they got out from under the car and all I hear is this ruckus, everybody asking each other, like, are they okay. I guess they dropped everything. They were looking for their phones and stuff.”

Asked if the people under the car were shot or if they were just bystanders hiding from the flying bullets, the woman said, “All I can see was one person and then one was walking from this way with his hand wrapped with a sweater. He was like, ‘I was shot. I was shot. They hit my arm.'” She said the victims then appeared to be calling each other by their names, looking for each other.

 

Asked if they were young guys, she said they all looked young and looked to be in their twenties. We asked if the people under the car appeared to be breathing and she said, “They were breathing. They were just hiding.” Asked how she felt now having witnessed the shooting, she said, “We were scared. Well, mostly me, because my mom was outside right when it happened, and I was calling her and she just happened to be on the corner when it was happening, so she was on this side. I work on the other side of the street. I work in Kingsbridge but my mom works on this side on Jerome and we walk this way at night all the time.”

 

Asked if there were a lot of people on the street at the time the shooting took place, she said, “no.” We asked how many shots she heard. She said it sounded like a lot of fast shots all at once like the sound of a machine gun. “It didn’t sound like pew, pew, pew.” she said.

A group of male youths, who appeared to be teenagers, were seen hanging out near the crime scene after the shooting. We asked if they had witnessed the shooting. They said they knew nothing about it.

 

We also spoke to one local resident of Morris Avenue, a single father, who declined to be identified and was clearly still shaken several hours later. He said he had been home at the time of the shooting with his young daughter when they heard the shots fired. He said they both hit the floor inside their apartment.

 

Appearing extremely concerned for what could potentially have happened to his daughter had bullets flown through their window, the man just said he really didn’t want to get involved. “It’s time to move to Florida,” he said. Asked how many shots he heard, he said “A lot.”

 

We spoke to some other residents to ask if they had seen the incident. Speaking in Spanish, one local resident, Rafael Roja, said he had not, as he arrived home later. Roja said it was the first time he recalled seeing anything like that in the neighborhood. He said he came outside to check his bike was still parked on the street where he left it. It was.

We mentioned that there had been another shooting involving four adults and two kids in broad daylight a year prior on the opposition side of the park, as reported, and asked the resident if he remembered it. He said he didn’t, and added that the south side of St. James Park was generally quieter than the north side. He also mentiond that the latest shooting took place quite late.

 

Another male resident who declined to be identified and who also had children said although he was shocked, it was still just a regular day for him. “Got to get out of The Bronx,” he said. Yet another male resident, who also declined to be identified, said what had happened was “scary.” He had not witnessed it.

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or, for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or on X @NYPDTips.