A 26-year-old man has been hospitalized following a daylight shooting on Thursday in the Olinville section of The Bronx by Global Evangelical Church.

 

A police spokesperson said the incident occurred at East 217th street and White Plains Road at about 3.51 p.m., adding, “The victim was shot a couple of times, once in the left leg, once in the left thigh, and once on the right foot.”

The spokesperson said the victim was taken to Jacobi Medical Center in Morris Park and was reported to be in stable condition. “They’re looking for three males who fled the location southbound on White Plains,” the spokesperson said. “Looks like they found some shell casings at the scene.”

 

Norwood News later spoke to some employees and residents of the area after the shooting. One local store owner who declined to be identified said he heard shots and was feeling fearful so stayed inside his store. He said he didn’t see anything. Two other workers at another nearby business said they also heard around four shots in quick succession but did not see anyone injured.

Asked if they were feeling fearful, in general, working in the area, the two workers said the business had been operating at the location for about 2 years and had not experienced anything similar up to that point.

 

One of the workers said there are sometimes drunken people around the area but added that they usually close up at around 6 p.m. and therefore he was not really aware of any problems that might arise at night time.

We spoke to two other male, middle-aged to older residents who declined to be identified who said they also heard the shots but didn’t see anything. One of them said that some people he was with at the time the shooting occurred thought the bangs might have been a car backfiring but he said he knew they were gunshots.

 

“It’s crazy,” his colleague said. “I just saw all the police arriving.” Asked if they had noticed if things had gotten more dangerous in the area in recent years or not, one of the men said that in his opinion there were too many smoke shops opening up and too close to one another.

 

He questioned how so many were seemingly illegal and mentioned he saw kids of around 10 or 11 years of age smoking cannabis on the platform of a subway station around a month prior to the shooting. “Where do they get it from?” he asked.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/ or on Twitter @NYPDTips.

 

All calls are strictly confidential.