A 17-year-old boy was fatally shot on Tuesday during an argument over a water gun fight that broke out in a Bronx park on one of the hottest days in New York City in over a decade, the police and the boy’s mother said on Wednesday.
The boy, Darrell Harris, was shot at least twice, in the head and in the arm, and died of his injuries on Tuesday night, according to the police. The shooter and another man involved in the altercation — neither of whom have been identified by the authorities — fled the scene, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the incident.
No arrests have been made, the police said.
The fatal shooting inside a city park comes days into a sweltering heat wave, which has blanketed the region since Sunday evening, driving temperatures toward the triple digits.
The episode stemmed from an encounter at Starlight Park, beside the Bronx River, between Darrell and a group having a water gun fight, which suddenly turned violent, according to the law enforcement official.
Darrell and a few friends had gone to the park to take refuge from the heat, according to his mother, Kellie Lewis. There, they encountered a group of people having a water gun fight with gel blasters, toy guns that shoot dissolvable gel pellets instead of water, according to the official.
What began as a joyful summertime outing soon escalated into a bout of violence.
A man from the water gun group, who has not been identified by the police, began shooting the pellets at Darrell, who grew angry, the official said. Darrell confronted the man, and the two began to argue and then physically fight, while a group of onlookers formed around them, the official said. Then, in a flash, Darrell charged at the man, and another man from the water gun group drew a firearm and shot him.
The shooter and the water gun-wielding man then fled the park, the official said.
Police officers responding to a 9-1-1 call arrived at the park just after 8 p.m. to find Darrell with wounds on his head and his right arm. Emergency medical workers arrived shortly afterward and transported him to Jacobi Medical Center, where he later died of his injuries.
“Nowadays these kids going to a water park on a hot day to get cooled off, and you don’t make it back home,” Ms. Lewis said in an interview on Wednesday. “These kids have to put down the guns.”
Darrell is Ms. Lewis’s second son to be fatally shot, she said. Her older son, Jamal W. Hunter, was killed in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx in 2021.
She said she was at home getting ready for bed on Tuesday evening when she received a call from a girl saying that Darrell had been shot. Ms. Lewis’s other surviving son ran out of the house, and she followed, hurrying the 15 minutes from their home to the park. By the time they arrived, Darrell was already in an ambulance on his way to Jacobi Medical Center.
A police officer drove her to the hospital.
Standing outside her home on Wednesday, Ms. Lewis said she was struggling to accept the loss of her youngest son, a rising senior at Bronx Leadership Academy II High School.
“Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children,” Ms. Lewis said. “Their children are supposed to bury them.”
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
Samantha Latson is a Times reporter covering New York City and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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