Times Square shooting: what happened and who was shot?
NYPD Commissioner confirms that the three victims were unintended targets of the shooter and were not related to one another.
Three people were hospitalized on Saturday after a shooting in Times Square left the youngest victim, a 4-year-old girl, injured.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea confirmed at a press conference that the three victims were unintended targets of the shooter and were not related to one another.
Two women, 4-year-old girl shot in Times Square
The young girl was struck in the leg, a 23-year-old woman was hit in her thigh and a 43-year-old woman was shot in the foot, according to police. All three victims were taken to nearby Bellevue Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Shea says according to their preliminary investigation, two to four male individuals were involved in a dispute when at least one person pulled out a gun and fired several shots.
One person of interest was being sought by police for the shooting. He was identified in a surveillance image distributed by police late on Saturday.
Nearby witnesses told police the men were arguing when one pulled out a gun and started shooting, striking the innocent bystanders.
"The first person shot is a 4-year-old female from Brooklyn. She was shot in the leg and it is believed she is undergoing surgery," Shea said.
Tourist shot
The 23-year-old victim was a tourist from Rhode Island exploring Times Square. The other woman, 43, was from New Jersey.
"How many kids have to be shot before we take this seriously? We just had a 1-year-old homicide cleared this week," Shea said, referencing the arrest of two Brooklyn gang members for the summer 2020 shooting that killed the baby boy who had been sitting in his stroller during a family cookout.
Witnesses reveal scene in New York
One witness told CBS2 she heard the shots and saw the victims lying in the street.
“Everybody’s congregating as normal and shots ring out, three of them. And I think everybody just kind of stopped and was in a shock and was really trying to figure out, like, if we really heard this happen, and so many people swarmed around them so quickly. They didn’t look good, but you didn’t really hear them scream or cry or anything like that. It just happened really, really quickly,” she said.