As Yonkers police officers rushed in to help the four people wounded in Thursday’s drive-by shooting, so did other members of the community, including a local shop owner. NBC New York’s Marc Santia reports.
Three suspects, one as young as 17, were arrested and charged in connection to Thursday's daytime drive-by shooting in Yonkers that injured four people.
Authorities said that someone inside a car opened fire at the intersection of Oak and Elm streets around 4:15 p.m., with three men and a woman struck by bullets. The woman was shot in the chest and was still listed in critical condition Saturday, Yonkers police said.
Yonkers Police Commissioner John Mueller had said all four victims were expected to survive.
A total of four suspects were apprehended after the shooting by a team of officers from neighboring departments with assistance from the FBI. The alleged gunman and accomplices were tracked by license plate readers and picked up in Mount Vernon after a short foot pursuit with authorities, Yonkers police said.
Three of the four suspects were arrested and charged with attempted murder in addition to other felony charges, police said Saturday. Authorities identified the three facing charges as 18-year-old Tyrese White of Mount Vernon, 21-year-old Andre McKenzie of Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 17-year-old also from Mount Vernon. Attorney information for the three was not immediately known.
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Investigators are calling the shooting gang-related and believe the shooter was targeting possible rivals.
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Police say up to 10 people were on the sidewalk around a convenience store on Elm Street when the gray Toyota Camry drove up and a gunman leaned out of a passenger window and began firing. A 9mm semi-automatic pistol was later recovered and is believed to be the firearm used in Thursday's shooting, police said.
Mueller said at a press conference that it's just the latest indication that gun violence is out of control — both in New York and across the country. He pointed to instances where suspects are arrested then released, and continue committing crimes.
"There's just this explosion of gun violence ... it's almost unprecedented," Mueller said. "With the proliferation of illegal guns and people being released on their own recognizance, makes it really, really hard to have repeated shootings over and over again."
Surveillance video of the shooting shows the moments just before, where people are hanging out on the sidewalk. Some are talking, other dribbling a basketball when the gray sedan pulls up and bullets start flying.
Murad Salameh stepped out of his corner store and ran to help after he heard the commotion. He found the 28-year-old woman lying on the ground.
"She told me, 'I'm thirsty. I need water.' That's why I left her to bring water for her," he said while recounting the events one day later.
Salameh is seen in the video running the victim water and a towel as the store owner tried a medical move he's seen many times on the big screen and applies pressure to the wound in an effort to stop the bleeding.
"I watch you know in the movies like that, you see you can do that," he says.
