Several Paintball Attacks Rattle Residents On Staten Island
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Two neighborhoods on alert where some residents are nursing the wounds of recent paintball attacks.
Police believe the same group of people is responsible for at least four paintball attacks on Staten Island over the weekend.
In one of the attacks, Renee Mafaro, 45, was walking her brother's dog at around 10:30 p.m. Saturday at Collfield and Auburn avenues in Westerleigh when an SUV carrying four males pulled up and one of them fired a paintball gun six times at her through an open window.
Mafaro told WCBS 880's Marla Diamond she scooped up the Yorkie to protect it. She was hit in the back of the leg with yellow paint, leaving her with a large, round bruise.
Multiple Paintball Attacks Reported On Staten Island
"The passenger (in the) front seat pulled out a very large gun, where he's holding it with both hands," Mafaro said. "I have no idea what that was. I just knew I was about to get shot with something.
Mafaro told CBS2's Emily Smith she believes they intended to attack her brothers dog but she acted fast and took the hit to protect their little Yorkie.
"My leg still stings, and it's numb. The whole area is numb."
There were three other similar incidents Friday and Saturday nights, police said. The NYPD released photos of a dark-colored GMC Terrain that it says was involved in the incidents.
At around 9:40 p.m. Friday, a 67-year-old man was walking with his family on Westwood and Warwick avenues when he was struck by paint.
"I thought it was a real gun. I said hold my hand. I looked for blood," Abraham Revivo told Smith.
Just after 11 p.m. Saturday, a 67-year-old woman walking with her husband was shot with paint at Wolley Avenue and Watchogue Road.
About 30 minutes later, someone fired at paintball gun at two teenage girls walking on Dickie Avenue near Waters Avenue.
Staten Island residents said they are concerned and mad.
"Makes me kind of nervous, to be honest with you," a man named Paul told 1010 WINS' Glenn Schuck.
"It's unfair. It's really unfair. You want to walk your dog in your own neighborhood, and you've got to worry about a regular car going by with a window being rolled down and then getting something tossed at you ... being shot at you."
"I'd like to slap those kids, yes," one woman said. "If they were my kids, they wouldn't be doing that. It's horrible. I mean, who raised these kids?"
Multiple Paintball Attacks Reported On Staten Island
Schuck reported that there was another attack at around 10 p.m. Saturday on Adelaide Avenue in Oakwood, in which someone shot paintballs from an SUV at a man on a bicycle, striking him in the ear.
The incidents come days after a string of paintball attacks in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Orthodox Jewish men were thought to be targeted.
Police do not believe those incidents are linked to the ones on Staten Island, Diamond reported.
The victims hope somebody knows who's behind this and speaks up. Until then, they're living in fear of doing things as simple as taking a walk, Smith reported.
