A 14-year-old was shot in the leg on her way home from school with her 10-year-old sister in East New York, police and family told the Post.
Tamia Tucker was minding her own business when a gunman dressed entirely in black opened fire in front of a gas station on the corner of Sutter and Euclid avenues around 3:30 p.m., Friday, police sources said.
The shooter had chased another man out of the Cypress Hills projects and into the streets, aiming wildly as he squeezed off shots at him, witnesses said.
An errant bullet struck the teen in her left leg, causing her to crumble to the ground.
“I don’t want to die!” she wailed as gas station clerk Issic Alsaidi, 29, ran to her side.
“I hear five shots and I hear the girl scream,” Alsaidi said. “I run to her and she was screaming. She was scared. She tried to get up but she couldn’t.”
Alsaidi quickly grabbed the girl’s pink scarf and tied it around her left leg to form a tourniquet.
“She was bleeding fast,” he said. “Her 10-year-old sister was next to her crying. She was frozen with fear.”
Rookie police officer Jamil Sarwar was shot in the thigh by a Bloods gang member in the same area on the Fourth of July. Police are still searching for that gunman.
In the latest shooting, gas station attendant Harpreet Singh, 32, saw the armed assailant chase his prey — straight toward him.
“They were running towards us here at the pump,” he said. “He shot three times and missed the guy he was chasing. He hit the 14-year-old girl. She was screaming, holding her leg, laying on the floor holding her left leg. She was in pain, agony. Issic stopped the bleeding.”
Another witness, who declined to give his name, had stopped at the Liberty Gas Station, when the gunman let off four or five rounds.
“That little girl was crying and bleeding,” he said. “It is terrible – just wrong. I got out of my car and ran for cover. I saw (the shooter) was dressed all in black, run south down Sutter. Another ran towards the projects.
The wounded teen’s father was working when he received a call saying his daughter had been shot.
“She just started high school this fall, ninth grade,” her distraught dad Lloyd Tucker, told the Post. “I don’t know what happened.”
He raced to the scene, then to the hospital.
“I haven’t seen her,” the stunned father said. “I have to get to the hospital. I have to go!”
The shooter ran south on Sutter Avenue, witnesses said. Police have not made any arrests but they are reviewing video from numerous cameras at the gas station and one NYPD camera mounted above a light post at the scene of the shooting.
Tamia’s family was still reeling from the news as they kept watch at her bedside at an area hospital. Dad, Lloyd Tucker, said there should be more cops in the area after school.
“She was on her way home from school,” the father said. “All she had to do was cross the street and she would have been home. There are a lot of cops out there at night but there aren’t enough during the day.”
Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese