A 13-year-old boy was arrested and charged on Monday in the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old girl, the second teenager to be arrested in the killing last week near a South Bronx school building, the police said.
The boy was charged with second-degree murder along with several other charges in the death of the girl, Evette Jeffrey, who was an unintended target of the shooting on May 12 following a schoolyard fight in the Morrisania neighborhood, police officials said.
The other defendant, who is 14 and was arrested last week, also faces murder and weapon charges in the killing, the police said. Both boys’ names were withheld because of their ages.
It was unclear on Monday which boy is accused of firing the shot that struck Evette in the head, killing her.
Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, has said youth crime remains a major concern for the department.
While the number of minor victims and shooters have decreased over the past three years, they are still higher than prepandemic levels. As of Sunday, 39 minors had been shot this year compared with 17 during the same time frame in 2018, according to police data. The police have identified at least 27 shooters who are minors this year compared with 16 during the 2018 period, according to the data.
“Kids generally commit crimes against other kids,” Commissioner Tisch said on Friday during an interview with Fox5 New York. “Youth violence is a very big problem that we are addressing now, and it is a greater percentage of overall crime in New York City than it’s been in the past.”
On May 12, around 5 p.m., a group of children had left the schoolyard at Home Street and Tinton Avenue near a building that houses three schools: the Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health and Science Charter School, Bronx Latin and the Bronx Career and College Preparatory High School.
Soon after, as the children entered a walkway adjacent to the building, a melee broke out, the police said. One boy punched another in the face before hitting several other children.
The group then began to walk one block east toward Union Avenue when the boy who had been hit ran toward the boy who had punched him, the police said. Someone handed a gun to the boy who had been attacked, and he fired three rounds into the crowd, striking Evette in the head.
Evette, who attended a nearby high school and was not involved in the fight, had been riding a scooter from the schoolyard down the walkway before the gunfire erupted. A boy tried to pull her behind a brick wall for cover.
Moments later, officers responding to 911 calls and notifications from gunfire-detection system arrived. Emergency workers took Evette to Lincoln Hospital where she was pronounced dead, the police said.
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
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