Two teens were arrested Wednesday after a 15-year-old boy was shot in the leg on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, cops said.
The suspects, boys ages 14 and 17, were charged with criminal possession of a loaded firearm after police recovered video of the younger teen pulling a gun from the waistband of the other boy’s pants shortly before Tuesday’s shooting, cops said. Investigators are still working to determine who pulled the trigger in the nonfatal shooting.
The boys were among three teens and one adult taken into custody shortly after the gunfire erupted at Stanton St. and Bowery, about a block away from Sara D Roosevelt Park and the Lower East Side Infill NYCHA development, around 5:25 p.m., said police.
The shooter fired off at least five rounds, striking the victim once in the left leg, according to a law enforcement source.
A worker at a nearby restaurant told the Daily News he heard the gunfire and glanced outside to see the teen lying on the pavement near the entrance of an apartment building.
Medics rushed the teen to Bellevue Hospital, where he’s expected to survive.
Two of the four people taken into custody were misidentified by a witness, and their arrests were voided shortly after they arrived at the Fifth Precinct stationhouse, sources said.
Police are investigating whether the shooting was gang related.