The 14-year-old sister of a 12-year-old girl shot in a Bronx park has described the frantic phone call she received moments after the gunfire erupted.
Miral Alamouri, 14, told The Post that her younger sibling called her Monday evening with terrified words: “I got shot. Oh, I’m scared.” The wounded girl had been struck in the stomach and right foot during what police believe may have been gang crossfire near Westchester Square.
Alamouri said she immediately tried to keep her sister conscious, knowing the danger of letting her drift off. “So I’m just talking to her, keeping her awake,” she explained. The sisters had parted ways only minutes earlier, when the younger girl went to meet friends at the park.
The shooting occurred around 8:30 p.m. On Tratman Avenue between Rowland Street and St. Peters Avenue, according to the NYPD. Alamouri said the people involved were masked, relaying what her sister told her.
The 12-year-old has already undergone surgery on her abdomen, where doctors discovered holes in her colon from the bullet. “Her right foot is fractured, so they’re gonna have to do surgery on that,” Alamouri shared. “They are waiting for her stomach to be fine before they get started on her leg.”
The family has declined to release a photograph of the wounded child, saying they fear for her safety.
Alamouri described the shock of receiving such a call from her sibling. “That’s not a call you would expect from your sibling,” she said. “I had just left her minutes prior to that.”
The teen also spoke about the approaching celebration now overshadowed by violence. “Obviously, I’m in shock,” she said. “I’m just praying for her to be fine. That’s my little sister, and her birthday is about to be in a few days.”
Alamouri directed her anger at the broader issue of youth access to firearms. “I just want them to stop giving children or young adults access to weapons because they don’t know how to use them,” she stated. “They keep using it to target people, shoot people.”
She added a bitter observation about innocent victims caught in street violence: “It’s always the wrong person at the wrong time and that shouldn’t be happening.”
The wounded girl had been at the park with friends when people in the area began shouting “Ewok!” shortly before shots rang out, according to the account. Police have not disclosed a motive or identified any suspects in the ongoing investigation.
Alamouri summed up the senselessness of the violence with a plain statement about what parks should be. “You go to the park to sit there and play with your friends, not to get shot,” she said.
The NYPD continues to investigate the shooting with no arrests announced.