Search On For Shooter After Stray Bullet Leaves Girl, 7, Wounded In The Bronx
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A little girl was recovering Monday after being struck by a bullet in the Bronx.
As CBS2's Alice Gainer reported, Arianna Maldonado, 7, was wounded in the leg Sunday night in the Morrisania section.
"I heard, 'Kaboom!'" she said.
Arianna showed CBS2 the graze wound to the back of her left leg.
"I was coming from my grandmother's house and I was done eating dinner I was coming around from the backyard, so I was running. My sister was behind me, because I said. 'I skipped you,' and then I never knew – I knew there was bullet coming," she said.
Her father, Juan Maldonado, showed the hole in her jeans left behind by the bullet.
"I heard a shot fired. My daughter ran to me saying. 'Daddy, ow! It hurts! I've been hit!'" he said.
Juan Maldonado and his two young daughters were coming from Sunday dinner around 9 p.m. at his father's house on Cauldwell Avenue. They were walking from the back to the front on a pathway when Arianna was hit.
"I didn't even see the shot fired," he said.
But neighbors did hear the shots fired and were not surprised.
"I heard (gunshot sounds) -- that's about it," said Antonio Soto.
"I live over there," added Gilberto Soleno. "There's shootings every now and then."
Juan Maldonado has lived in the neighborhood for 28 years, and said it is getting worse.
"It's been really frequent for the last two years -- especially in the summertime," he said. "There have been a lot of shootings -- especially that direct area; that direct building."
He said he was enraged when it happened, and his daughter was shaken up and crying. But the 7-year-old was in better spirits Monday, clutching the teddy bear gifted to her by the NYPD.
"I named him Jacob!" she said of the teddy bear.
A better gift for the neighborhood, the family said, would be more police patrols – especially with so many young children around.
"More police presence," Juan Maldonado said. "I know they do come here frequently; they do patrol. But maybe steady; maybe steady foot patrol."
"I think the police are a little too loose now," added Soleno. "There's no police anymore. I don't see them."
Sources told CBS2 a single gunman fired at a group of people across the street from the young girl. She was not the intended target.
There had been no arrests as of late Monday afternoon.
As for the Maldonados, from now on, they will stay home on weekends.
