Boy, 8, Shot Inside Bronx Bodega Remains Hospitalized; Gunman Still Being Sought

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- An 8-year-old boy remains hospitalized after he was shot in the shoulder while buying a snack in the Bronx Tuesday night.

Young Armando Bigo had just walked into Papa Yala's Deli and Grocery inc. in the Soundview section with his mother and picked up a bag of chips. Surveillance video from the store caught the moment he was shot in the shoulder.

"So he started walking towards his mother, holding his shoulder. That's when we noticed he got shot," bodega owner Mahmood Abdulrub told CBS 2's Pablo Guzman.

Abdulrub said the boy's mother became "very nervous" and "didn't know how to react" when she realized her son had been shot. He said the boy even apologized for bleeding on his floor.

It certainly wasn't the first time Abdulrub has heard gunshots in the area.

"Another day in this neighborhood, man," he told 1010 WINS' Al Jones.

LISTEN: 1010 WINS' Al Jones Reports

Witnesses told police someone, who had been involved in an earlier fight, came by on a bike and shot at somebody else in the store, but got the boy.

Many children and their relatives can be seen walking in the Bronx neighborhood. It is a neighborhood that people say, has gotten dangerous. Kumasi Ouattara, 9, talked to Guzman before heading out of the bodega earlier Wednesday afternoon.

Guzman: I understand this is a tough block?
Ouattara: Yeah.

Guzman: So what do you do? You stay home, you don't play in the street?
Ouattara: Stay home.

Abdulruv said he will never forget how brave his young customer was. He rushed over to help and tried to comfort the him after the shooting.

"Like when he was sitting, he just looked up at me and said 'Thank you.' That's when I really felt bad for him. I was like 'Don't worry about it. It'll be all right,'" he said.

The boy remains in fair condition at Jacobi Hospital, where he is surrounded by his family.

Police are still searching for the gunman.

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