Crime & Safety
Teen Shot In Failed Lenox Hill Smoke Shop Rob: Police
A 15-year-old was grazed by a bullet fired inside a Third Avenue smoke shop Wednesday evening, police said.
UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A teenaged boy was shot inside an Upper East Side smoke shop on Wednesday evening, police said.
Officials said the teen attempted to rob the Third Avenue store when a clerk pulled out a gun and shot him in the left foot.
The 15-year-old victim was rushed to the hospital, a NYPD spokesperson told Patch, and was in stable condition.
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According to video obtained by the Daily News, the teen entered the recently opened Smile Smoke on the corner of Third Avenue and East 61st Street at about 6 p.m. with about five other people.
The video depicts the group of six approach the back of the shop, and shows that when two people attempted to hop over the counter, an employee pulled out a gun and fired into the group, with one of them falling to the ground.
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One witness told the Daily News that she saw the aftermath of the group sprinting out of the shop, and how they at first helped their wounded pal — and then ditched him on a Lenox Hill sidewalk.
“He was limping and they were holding him up,” Christina Rosario told the Daily News Wednesday night. “One of them was wobbling and without his shoe. There were so many of them.”
The bleeding 15-year-old was left to fend for himself as soon as the group exited the shop, she told the Daily News.
“I can’t believe they left him,” Rosario told the Daily News. “It’s crazy.”
Police have yet to issue any further information on either the five others who were with the teen or about the store clerk who is depicted as shooting at the group in the store video.
Investigators are still looking for the clerk who fled the scene after the shooting, police said.
Violence has plagued unlicensed smoke shops all over the city — including the Upper East Side — in the past year.
Smile Smoke does not appear on the NY State Office of Cannabis Management list of legal dispensaries — nor does any Upper East Side establishment.
New city legislation aims to target landlord with hefty fines for allowing the illegal shops to operate.
A NYPD spokesperson told Patch that the victim is not cooperating with police investigators.
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