Teen Arrested For Shooting Girl Outside Jamaica School: Cops

JAMAICA, QUEENS — A 16-year-old boy was charged with attempted murder for firing the bullet that struck an innocent teen girl in the shoulder outside a Jamaica charter school earlier this week, police said Wednesday.

The shooting happened about 4 p.m. Monday outside New Dawn Charter High School II on 89th Avenue and 161st Street, according to police.

Ashley Armoogan, 16, was leaving school that day when she heard shots ring out and started running, then realized she'd been hit, she told WABC.

The suspected gunman was taken into custody Wednesday, an NYPD spokesperson confirmed. He also faces charges of assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon.

(Keep up with news in Jamaica by subscribing to Jamaica Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The teen, along with two other teenage boys, will also face charges for shots fired an hour earlier on a Q113 bus, the New York Post reported. No one was injured in that shooting.

He has at least three prior arrests for armed robbery and assault, law enforcement sources told the Post.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea blamed the shooting, and another days earlier that left a 14-year-old boy dead, on a fight between two rival groups of teens that has gone on for several months.

In the earlier shooting, on Oct. 26, aspiring athlete Aamir Griffin was fatally struck by a stray bullet as he practiced basketball at the Baisley Park Houses in South Jamaica.

"Sometimes it starts over absolutely nothing," Shea said Wednesday, according to the New York Daily News. "The problem here is these are young kids with guns."

News of the arrest follows reports that the gunman had turned himself in for the shooting. Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that the 15-year-old boy's confession turned out to be false, though he was charged with robbery for an unrelated case.