A teen suspect was taken into custody Thursday for the stray bullet slaying of a 69-year-old East Harlem woman using a walker, cops said.
The 18-year-old suspect was nabbed in a joint effort by Homeland Security and the NYPD Violent Crimes Task Force on Thursday morning, a police source said.
Police investigate after innocent bystander Robin Wright was fatally shot at Park Ave. and 110th St. Aug. 27. (Barry Williams / New York Daily News)
He is being questioned in the death of Robin Wright, who was struck in the head by a stray bullet near E. 110th St. and Madison Ave. about 12:25 p.m. Aug. 27, down the block from the apartment she shared with her grandson. No charges were immediately filed.
Cops believe the shooting was gang related, according to the source.
Robin Wright was fatally shot at Park Ave. and 110th St. in East Harlem on Aug. 27. (Facebook)
Law enforcement officers are still looking for at least one other person involved in the crime, the source said.
Wright and a friend were heading home with Chinese food and had just turned the corner onto E. 110th St. and were walking towards Madison Ave. when the friend, Junita Arnold, spotted three men in hoodies running across the avenue.
“I said [to Wright], ‘They looked like they got guns,’” Arnold told the Daily News afterwards. “I didn’t see the gun but I felt within myself, the way they were running.”
“I was right,” Arnold added. “Next thing, I heard six to seven gunshots and I’m standing there. I looked and my friend is down on the ground.”
Cops said two crooks robbed a man who chased them down and shot at them but did not hit anyone. The robbers then fired back and one of their bullets struck Wright, police said.
Arnold checked herself to see if she was shot and then turned to Wright, who was lying on the ground, blood pouring from her mouth.
“I said, ‘Oh, my God! Oh, you are all right, Miss Robin?’” she recalled. “And she said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Are you shot?’ She said, ‘Yes.’”
“And that was the only thing she said to me,” Arnold added. “I thank the Lord that I’m still here. But my friend is not here — and we were together side by side.”
Medics rushed Wright to Mount Sinai Hospital but she could not be saved.
Wright had returned home from a nursing home in July, around the time she celebrated her 69th birthday, Arnold said. She had only been using the walker for about a month, to help her regain feeling in the nerves of her right leg. Her doting grandson was staying with her while she recovered.
The gunshots were fired off at E. 110th St. near Park Ave., almost on the opposite end of the block from where Wright and Arnold were walking, Arnold said. “It’s a distance,” she said. “I don’t understand how the bullet hit her. All I know was that I was right next to her.”
“We didn’t expect for any of that to happen,” she added. “That [bullet] wasn’t for her. We were minding our business.”
With John Annese
