Police said Friday federal and local authorities in Yonkers arrested the suspect in a shooting and shoplifting incident in Times Square that injured a bystander and sent officers scrambling to find the alleged shooter Thursday night.
The arrest came just minutes after NYPD officials held a press conference in Times Square announcing the suspect as a 15-year-old boy whose last known address matched the location of the Stratford Arms Hotel on the Upper West Side, which has been used as an emergency migrant shelter for months.
Police said the boy immigrated from Venezuela last September and that the gun used in Thursday’s shooting was .45 handgun, though they did not say how he obtained it.
Police also said he was a suspect in another recent Times Square shooting, on Jan. 25, where a similar handgun was used but no one was struck, and a suspect in a Jan. 27 armed robbery in the Bronx.
At around 7 p.m. Thursday, the boy and two other people were trying to steal a jacket from the JD Sports store at Broadway and West 42nd Street, according to NYPD Assistant Chief of Detectives Jason Savino.
When a female security guard asked the alleged shoplifters for a receipt, the boy shot at her but missed and hit a 38-year-old tourist from Brazil who was in line to buy a pair of sneakers, Savino said at a news briefing Friday evening. The tourist was hospitalized in stable condition and has since been released, according to the NYPD.
Police said officers outside the store arrested one person in the group and began to chase the suspected shooter. He then turned and fired twice at the officers, who did not fire back as they were “well aware of the dangers of firing a gun on a crowded, busy street,” said Savino.
The suspect allegedly ran into a subway station on West 46th Street and 6th Avenue and was caught on surveillance video going on the tracks before exiting the subway without his jacket on.
The boy will “likely” be charged with attempted murder of a police officer,…
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