Bronx girl was celebrating anniversary with boyfriend when killed by stray bullet
The innocent 16-year-old girl struck by a stray bullet as she rode a scooter outside a Bronx school playground was celebrating her one-year anniversary with her boyfriend when she was killed, her heartbroken family said Tuesday.
Evette Jeffrey had spent the afternoon with her beau when a 14-year-old gunman opened fire into a crowd outside the Bronx Career and College Preparatory High School campus near Home St. and Tinton Ave. in Morrisania.
'Her and her boyfriend were together for one year so they went out to eat and they went to the park and they just shot her,' the victim's shocked aunt told the Daily News Tuesday.
Evette was riding her kick scooter just outside the school playground when the boy opened fire into a crowd, cops said.
The gunfire was heard by Jeffrey's grandmother, who lived near the shooting scene.
'I was upstairs and I heard three shots because my windows face that way,' she said. 'I tried to reach (Evette) … and there was no answer. She wasn't connected (to wifi). So I decided to come down and as I was getting ready to leave, that's when my neighbors came and told me that she died.'
A boy tried to pull Evette behind a brick wall for cover but a stray bullet struck her in the head, cops said.
The teenage trigger man was aiming at a teenage boy who had punched him moments earlier, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters during a press conference with Mayor Adams at the scene Monday. Another teen handed the youthful shooter the gun before he fired three rounds into the crowd, police said.
'All the kids were running and screaming,' witness Julio Reyes told the Daily News Monday. 'I ran down and they were pumping her chest. It was a head shot, she was not responding. An officer was shaking her head, the little girl was already gone,'
Medics transported Evette to Lincoln Hospital, where she died.
'The mom is absolutely inconsolable,' said Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, who went to Lincoln Hospital to speak to Evette's family. 'I'm so heartbroken. And we just recognized Mother's Day yesterday and now this mother has lost her child.'
Evette had 'just turned 16 last month,' Tisch said. 'She should be home right now eating dinner with her family but instead you're talking about another child victim of gun violence.'
Tisch called Jeffrey's death 'another senseless tragedy' in the city.
So far this year, 28 youths under 18 have been shooting victims, Tisch said. At the same time, 17 adolescents have been arrested for pulling triggers.
'These are babies killing babies and it has to stop,' Tisch said.
'We are losing a generation of our young people as victims and as shooters' Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark added Monday. 'Kids need to know that they should be kids. They should be picking up books and not guns. And we're going to do everything we can to make sure we get that message out there.'
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