Police arrest 14-year-old boy in Bronx killing of teen bystander who was near her home

The family of a 16-year-old girl who was shot and killed as a bystander outside a Bronx school while she was heading home called for justice Tuesday as police arrested a 14-year-old boy who they say fired the gun.

NYPD officials said Evette Jeffrey died after being hit in her head by a stray bullet around 5 p.m. Monday near Home Street and Tinton Avenue in Morrisania. The shooting happened next to Bronx Latin, a prestigious middle and high school, and Jeffrey was pronounced dead at Lincoln Hospital.

Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon that police identified the suspect, whom he did not name, through surveillance videos and witness interviews. Fugitive task force detectives and U.S. Marshal Service members arrested the boy at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday near the intersection of Rev. James A. Polite Ave. and East 163rd St. in Longwood, Kenny said.

“As the perpetrator attempted to enter a taxi, he realized the presence of police and tried to flee the scene, but our officers moved in quickly and apprehended him without further incident,” he said.

According to police, the 14-year-old is involved in a gang called KOD, or Kreeps on Davidson, which is allegedly a rival of one called FOE, or Forest Over Everything. Before the shooting, the suspect had been in a fist fight with another unidentified boy at the schoolyard, Kenny said.

“The altercation then carried out onto the walkway behind the school, where another individual ran up and punched the shooter,” he said. “And that person, we believe, was the intended target.”

But the bullet hit Jeffrey instead, according to authorities. Her family and friends told reporters she was riding a scooter back to her apartment from the old Morris High School building a few blocks away, where she went to school. The family’s home is just a short walk from where the shooting took place.

“I don’t forgive you. I hold your family responsible, because they should be watching,” Jeffery’s grandmother Lizette Ramirez said of the shooter. “She’s forever 16. You took her away from us.”

At the family’s building Tuesday morning, Ramirez and Jeffrey’s mother, Kristen Abad, said they were still processing the 16-year-old’s death. They said Jeffrey dreamed of becoming a medical technician when she grew up, had several pets she adored and was excited to go to college.

Mayor Eric Adams visited the scene Monday night and said the suspected shooter was a 14-year-old boy who once threatened his mother with a gun. There was a heavy NYPD presence around Bronx Latin on Tuesday morning as students arrived.

Jeffrey is the 10th teen to die from gun violence so far this year, according to police data compiled by Gothamist. Shootings in the 42nd Precinct, which includes Morrisania, Claremont and Crotona Park, have remained level with last year’s number around this time, the data shows.

This story has been updated with additional information.