NEW YORK (NewsNation) — A trip to get milk for breakfast almost ended tragically for two New York City tourists when a teenage girl and her mother were struck by stray bullets inside a Bronx bodega.
The 13-year-old and her 46-year-old mother were inside the store Sunday night when they were caught in the crossfire of bullets. A bullet hit the teen’s hand and another grazed her neck; the mom was also grazed by a bullet, police said.
The pair were in New York City on vacation from Texas. Their names are not being used to protect their identity and safety.
“I just see a guy run towards the back and I’m like why is he running and then I just hear a bullet and I go down,” the teenage victim recalled.
The teen said her mother is the real hero.
“She tried to pull me down and I think that saved my life,” the teenage victim said about her mom. “If not, I would have got shot right in my neck.”
Some people say New York City is starting to feel like the wild, wild west with so many shootings and gun-related injuries and deaths.
This past weekend, 14 people were shot, with shootings happening in all five of the city’s boroughs. Many of the victims were innocent bystanders, hit by stray bullets while walking their dogs or sitting outside.
Police believe the same person who shot the mother and daughter in the Bronx bodega also shot a woman who was walking her dog in the same neighborhood.
Miles away and minutes across town in Brooklyn, a 74-year-old woman sitting on a bench was shot along with four other people. And in Harlem, a 34-year-old man was shot and killed. Those are just some of the victims from a violent weekend as the city struggles to get a handle on gun violence with shootings happening almost every day.
“We got to end this gun violence. We got to put these guns down. So, I say this to all the young people out there, please reconcile your differences,” said NYPD Community Affairs Liaison Chaplain Robert Rice.
As of Tuesday morning, police haven’t made any arrests from any of those shootings.
Despite the violence, New York City Mayor Eric Adams says shootings and homicides for the first six months of the year are down this year compared to the same time last year.
NewsNation affiliate WPIX contributed to this report.