A 15-year-old boy shot by a rival teen on a Queens subway train was left paralyzed and comatose — with his family holding out little hope he’ll ever recover, the victim’s heartbroken great uncle says.
The victim was hit in the chest and back on an A train approaching the 80th St. station in Ozone Park about 6 p.m. Monday, cops said.
“We’re devastated,” the victim’s great uncle, 70-year-old Carl Winston, told the Daily News. “We’re going through a whole lot right now.”
“There was a fight and he was shot six times,” he added. “He’s on a respirator, a breathing machine. If they take him off the machine he might die.”
Even if he survives, the boy’s prognosis is grim, Winston says.
“He’s going to be a vegetable,” he said. “He was hit in the spine and he’s going to be paralyzed from the waist down. We hope he comes out of it, but his mom doesn’t think so. If he doesn’t improve, his mom is going to take him off the machine.”
It was the second time the teen had been wounded in a shooting this year. The victim was struck in the left leg on Feb. 7 during a clash inside a building on Everdell Ave. not far from his family’s former home in Far Rockaway, police sources said.
“He was shot one time in the leg by the same guys before,” the victim’s great uncle confirmed.
Police arrested a 15-year-old boy in March and charged him in the February shooting but the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office declined to prosecute after the victim refused to testify.
On Monday, investigators believe the victim confronted the suspect from the February shooting after running into him on the Manhattan-bound A train, sources said. The suspect was armed but did not pull his weapon at first, police sources said.
The two teens fought until the suspect’s friend grabbed the suspect’s weapon and opened fire, the sources said.
The victim was rushed to Jamaica Hospital.
“This was an unacceptable incident,” Mayor Mamdani said in a statement Monday. “Violence like this has no place on our subway system, and my administration is committed to doing everything in our power to make every New Yorker — especially children — safe on their daily commutes.”
The victim is the second oldest of five siblings, with two brothers and two sisters. His uncle said he was a once promising student.
“He was a good kid but he started turning bad,” said Winston. “He started hanging out and not going to school. That was years ago.”
Law enforcement sources say the victim has been linked to multiple robbery patterns and has a criminal record that includes numerous arrests.
Monday’s shooting caused a mass panic on the subway car with straphangers stampeded towards the exits as the train entered the station.
“It was pandemonium. Everybody just took off running, man. Including the two guys, the teenagers that were fighting,” witness Junior White told ABC7 New York. “We all jumped onto the floor and stayed below and the doorman opened the doors up and some people ran out .”
Cops on Tuesday released images of the suspected shooter in Monday’s clash, describing him as a teen with braids, a medium build and a medium complexion. He was wearing all black clothing and gray sneakers.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.