A 15-year-old boy is now stable having earlier been reported as being in critical condition on Friday evening, following a shooting on the Grand Concourse and East Kingsbridge Road in Fordham Manor on Friday night, police said.

 

A police spokesperson said they were alerted to the incident at around 7.57 p.m. on Friday, March 8. “Officers responded to a 911 call of a male shot outside 2675 Grand Concourse,” the spokesperson said in part. “Upon arrival, they observed a 15-year-old male suffering from a gunshot wound to the left thigh. He’s taken by EMS to Jacobi hospital where he’s listed in critical condition. No arrests and the investigation is ongoing.”

During a follow-up call with police in the early hours of Saturday, March 9, police reported that the boy was later reported to be in stable condition.

 

We asked the NYPD about reports posted the Citizens’ App of shots fired on Friday evening around the same time at Creston Avenue and East Kingsbridge Road, one block from the location of the shooting at East Kingsbridge and the Grand Concourse, though it’s possible it was the same incident and people just heard the shots from one block away.

“I don’t have anything on that just yet,” the spokesperson said.

 

A pool of blood was seen on the corner of the Grand Concourse and East Kingsbridge Road just by the entrance to the Kingsbridge Road subway station.

There were some black, possibly electronic devices as well as some blue plastic items located close to the pool of blood.

 

What appeared to be a jacket (perhaps two), what looked to be a small, black handbag, a red and black string, a red and white string of some kind, and what looked to be the metal strap of a watch were also seen on the street close to the blood pool on the corner of the Grand Concourse and East Kingsbridge Road, which was cordoned off by police, including the subway entrance to the D train.

Also cordoned off (on the south side only) was a stretch of East Kingsbridge Road from Creston Avenue as far as the Grand Concourse. A third section of the Grand Concourse was also cordoned off by police a bit further north.

 

We spoke to some people in the area about what they had seen or heard. One man who lived in the building on the corner of Grand Concourse and East Kingsbridge Road closet to the crime scene and who declined to be identified, said, “I heard three or four gunshots.” Asked what time, he said he thought around 8 or 8.15 p.m.

He added, “I was in the hallway about to walk my dogs and I heard three or four gunshots and then I heard somebody scream.” Asked if it was a male or a female or an adult or a child, he said, “It sounded like a man.” Asked if he recalled what he said, the resident said, “No, I just heard like ahhhh like that!! And then I told my daughter, we’re going back into the house.”

 

Asked how old his daughter was, he said, “17, yeah, we were about to walk the dogs and then we heard the gunshots, and I heard the scream. I was like, ‘No, we’re going back inside the house.'”

He said the scream came from the street, not from inside the building. Asked how he felt that there was a shooting on his block, he said, “Sad. I never let my kids go anywhere without me and they’re like, 20 and 17.”

 

Asked how that worked if they had to go to school or work, he said, “Yeah, but I try and stay with them.” Asked if there was anything he wanted to say in terms of security or policing, he said, “I think they should have more police over here in the corners, ’cause last week, there were two incidents of a guy across the street with a large knife.”

“I guess there was someone outside the building [outside the deli on the opposite side of the street (near Poe Park) and the police came,” he said.

 

We asked what day this happened and the man said he thought it was Monday, March 4 at around 11.30 a.m. Asked if he thought it was a mentally unstable person, he said he didn’t know. Norwood News followed up with the NYPD press team for more details about the incident. A police spokesperson responded, saying, “There is no report on file with the information provided.”

A female resident, who declined to be identified and who was with her two daughters aged 15 and 10, said they lived on the opposite side of the Grand Concourse, by Poe Park [and the referenced deli], to where the shooting took place.

 

Speaking in Spanish, the woman said she knew her 20-year-old son had been out and about in the local area the same evening and that when her neighbor called her to let her know about the shooting, she called her son but couldn’t reach him.

She said she later managed to connect with her son by phone. Asked how she felt about the incident, she said, “Frightened. I came out running.”  Asked how she felt about crime in the neighborhood in general, the woman said, “It’s very bad. I’m thinking of moving away from here.”

 

We asked if she meant moving away from the neighborhood and she said, “No, another borough. There’s many things that happen that frighten me. Already, at night, you can’t walk in the streets.”

We asked from what time she felt it was no longer safe to walk in the street at night. “At whatever time, it’s bad but it’s more dangerous by night,” she said.

 

The resident said her two daughters attended local schools, one at P.S. 246 right by the crime scene, opposite Poe Park on the Grand Concourse, and often saw drug users in the area, even inside her own building [where she lived]. “You have to be careful because they come into the building,” she said.

She added, “I don’t let them [her kids] go out at night and I don’t go out at night either.” Asked how the drug users got inside her building [if they didn’t live there], she said, “The neighbors open the door for them; I don’t know if they have a key…but they enter and go up the stairs in groups.”

 

Norwood News recently reported that federal prosecutors announced on March 6 the arrests of 16 members of an “armed and violent” drug trafficking crew who had been terrorizing a section of Valentine Avenue in Fordham Manor located between East 194th (by Poe Park) and East 196th Street for several years.

With the permission of their mom, we asked the woman’s two daughters how they felt about the shooting. The 10-year-old said, “I just feel really scared because the community is getting really bad like in general, not just people doing stuff. Some people are, like, innocent and sometimes, they have to pay for what other people do.”

 

She continued, “And that’s not fair. Sometimes people just run by and kill them, like.” Asked if she got training at school on what to do if there’s a mass shooting, she said, “Not really. We just got fire drills and lockdown practice and sheltering…like to stay inside the building when there’s stuff happening around.That’s how they explain it. Today, we had a lockdown practice.”

Asked how it made her feel when she has to do the training, she said, “It makes me feel, like, scared. Even if it’s a joke, sometimes I get scared. I just don’t want it [anything bad] to happen [for real]. Asked if she felt others took the drills seriously, she said, “Some people do joke about it.” Asked if she or any of her friends had been affected by gun violence, she said, “Personally, I haven’t heard about anybody.”

 

She added that people should be careful going out and to pay attention to ther surroundings. “Keep your awareness just like on,” she said. She also said that she and her friends had discussed the smoke shop located on the Grand Concourse beside her school and felt they should tell their parents about it because it looked like it sold candy and this confused some kids.

The Friday night incident comes just four days after a 16-year-old male was shot, as reported, also on the Grand Concourse [at East 184th Street] on March 4, as he fled for his life with two younger siblings aged 13 and 10.

 

As of March 8, the NYPD said they have removed 1114 illegal guns off New York City streets since the beginning of the year, and 14,704 since Jan. 1, 2022.

Overall in The Bronx, year-to-date shooting incidents are up, as are shooting victims as of March 3 compared to the same timeframe in 2023.

 

In the 52nd Precinct, where the incident occurred, year-to-date shooting incidents are up 25 percent, and shooting victims are up 125 percent, of March 3, compared to the same timeframe in 2023.

 

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/, on Twitter @NYPDTips.

 

All calls are strictly confidential.