A stray bullet from a fight that broke out on a Manhattan, N.Y., street wounded a woman who is eight months pregnant as she sat in her parked car, police said Tuesday.
Returning from a restaurant, the 19-year-old woman and her boyfriend were sitting in the vehicle when two groups of men started fighting on the sidewalk. One man haphazardly fired four shots from his gun, one of which punctured the woman's car and hit her in the leg.
"The woman was hit in the thigh," Ozzy Orengo, who witnessed the shooting, told the New York Daily News. "Her left leg was bleeding. Her neighbor was holding her up. She was crying. She was saying, 'It hurts! It hurts!' in Spanish."
The incident happened hours after New York governor Kathy Hochul (D.) in a statement Monday afternoon dismissed her state's rising crime rate. She said a few "high-profile instances" have created "a sense of fear in people's minds." Yet the New York City Police Department reported a 15.2 percent spike in crime in the last year. The state's crime wave could spell trouble for the incumbent Democrat, who is only 6 points ahead of Republican challenger Lee Zeldin. Crime is a key issue for voters along with the economy.
The victim of Monday night's shooting is being treated for a minor wound at Harlem Hospital. The police are still searching for the gunman. The incident took place just steps from the pregnant woman's house.
"It's another day in the neighborhood," Orengo said.