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Paterson Grieves After 2nd Young Girl Shot Dead Since July

PATERSON, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- Paterson residents are mourning the second shooting death of a young girl in a little more than two months.

On Saturday night, 14-year-old Nazerah Bugg was killed on Clinton Street just after she and her friends left Mom's Fried Chicken, 1010 WINS' Glenn Schuck reported. There was a random spray of gunfire. Nazerah was shot in the chest, and a 15-year-old girl she was with was also wounded.

Nazerah, who dreamed of someday playing professional basketball, fell to the sidewalk and later died.

"Just a happy-go-lucky, quiet girl. Loved basketball. She's always had a basketball in her hands," Geri Longmire told CBS 2's John Slattery.

Paterson Grieves After 2nd Young Girl Shot Dead Since July

Steady streams of people stopped by a makeshift memorial for Nazerah on Monday, leaving behind basketballs, candles, flowers and cards.

Virginia, who saw Nazerah every day, told Schuck she came running with her daughter when she heard the gunfire. The mother said she held the teen's hand as she was gravely wounded.

Nazerah Bugg
Nazerah Bugg (credit: CBS 2)

"We heard her screaming, saying, 'It burns. It burns,'" Virginia said. "Then from there, she stopped screaming, she stopped moving, she stopped doing everything. That's how I knew she died right here on the scene.

"My daughter don't even sleep now because every time she closes her eyes, she sees her," Virginia said.

The shooting comes a little more than two months after 12-year-old Genesis Rincon was killed by a stray bullet while riding her scooter in Paterson.

"It's our hood," Virginia said. "It's Paterson. It's sad how they talk about us, how high the rate of death is out here."

No arrest has been made in Saturday night's shooting.

Residents told 1010 WINS' Gary Baumgarten that a neighborhood territorial dispute led to the gunfire.

"She was coming from the chicken store with a couple of friends, and then they saw a greenish van coming toward them and shooting. The first bullet missed," said one witness. "And then this girl, a 15-year-old, was running, and she got shot."

A young girl who said she was friends with the victim said the territorial dispute has been ongoing for some time, Baumgarten reported.

"Up the hill, across the bridge had beef with people downhill on this side of the bridge," she said. "I don't even know why. We're all a community. We're all Paterson. We all need to get along. They trying to get war."

"Guns is not the answer," said another friend. "They shooting innocent people for no reason."

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