New York Police have identified a suspect in the shocking stray bullet killing of an 11-year-old Brooklyn girl and he’s just 14 years old.
“Oh my God, no!” Kyhara Tay’s bereaved mother gasped Thursday, May 19, when she learned of the teen’s age from police. The teen was also assisted by an 18 year old.
If arrested and charged, the boy, who has not yet been publicly identified, would be among the youngest accused killers in recent memory.
The 18-year-old accomplice will likely face murder charges as well, sources said.
The boy, riding on a scooter driven by the 18-year-old accomplice, opened fire Monday afternoon as they chased their target down Fox St., sources said.
The target, believed to be another teen, was not hit and managed to get away.
An errant shot sailed a half-block down Fox St. and hit Kyhara outside the New Kim nail salon near Westchester Ave. Kyhara, who was waiting for a friend getting her nails done, was struck in the stomach.
Police have identified the target, but it is not clear if he has been interviewed or why the young gunman fired at him, sources said.
”He’s only 14 years old? How is that?,” Kyhara’s mum said, crying as about a dozen loved ones consoled her outside her Bronx home.
“I can’t believe it. Why did he do this?”
“She kept saying, ‘Ow, it hurts!’” said Lillian Johnson, 18, who was getting her nails done when the shooting started.
“They had just gotten out of school, they had their book bags and everything.”
Another eyewitness, Yuberkis Bena, 48, desperately tried to staunch the bleeding.
“I saw her bleeding, and I pull [up] her T-shirt and I ask the lady in the nail salon to give me napkins,” Bena recounted. “I was pressing cause she had the [bullet] hole. I said, ‘She got shot! She got shot! Call the ambulance!’ So I was putting pressure on her belly.”
The victim’s father, Sokpini Tay said he had been hoping to move the family to a house in Connecticut.
“We’ve been here seven years,” he said. “I was trying to get her out of here. I guess I wasn’t working fast enough.”
Both parents called for an arrest in the senseless shooting of their beloved little girl.
“I just want him to do his time — 25 years, whatever they’re going to give,” said the distraught dad. “Do it like a man, you know? It happened already. He’s gotta do what he’s got to do now.”