Bronx girl shot dead on her way to get sugar for Thanksgiving Pie

A 14-year-old Bronx girl was hit by stray gunfire in broad daylight on Thanksgiving Day – while she was on her way to get brown sugar for her family’s sweet potato pie, her distraught mother said.

“It’s out of control,” the victim’s mother told The Post Friday of escalating gun violence in the Big Apple.

“It’s every day. Every day you hear something happening.”

The mum said she sent her daughter and 16-year-old son to the store for the last-minute ingredient run – and received a panicked call from her son just minutes after they left the house.

Her teenage daughter was shot in the leg around 2:30 p.m. just steps from the Edenwald Playground on Schieffelin Avenue near East 225th Street.

“They literally just left the house — less than five minutes,” the woman said.

Police do not believe the girl was the intended target.

“It hurts me,” added the mother, who asked not to be named. “I am grateful that my daughter is alive.”

The teenagers weren’t sure where the shots came from, but the older brother helped his limping sister into a nearby building.

When her mother arrived, police and rescue workers were already helping the sobbing girl with her wound.

“She was crying. I tried to get to her but they were already working on her leg,” the mother said. “I could touch her hand, rub her head, her hair, her face to comfort her.”

The girl was taken to Jacobi Medical Center for treatment and later released.

The mother said her children were “traumatized” but her 14-year-old daughter is at home and “is fine”.

“It happened one day when the family was together to help her, to comfort her. She was surrounded by love,” said the mother.

“I want whoever did this to pay for it, but God is in control. If you don’t repent, you will pay for it one day.”

NYPD officers and members of an FBI task force returned to the shooting scene Friday to search for evidence.

Police had no information on a suspect and it was unclear who the gunman was targeting.

Meanwhile, neighbors were shaken up by the daylight shooting – and afraid to let their children go outside.

Samantha Wright, 35, said the shots were fired while she was in her kitchen.

“I heard three shots — bang, bang, bang — back to back,” Wright told the Post.

“They sounded like firecrackers, but I said, ‘No, those aren’t firecrackers.’ I was afraid to look outside.”

Wright said she even sent her own 14-year-old daughter to the store before the shooting.

“Even our kids aren’t safe here — and you can’t keep them in the house,” said the fed-up parent. “They have to go. It’s really sad.”

Another mother, who asked to be identified as Sade E, said parents in the community need to stand together and take matters into their own hands.

“I don’t think I’m really going to let them outside now, they really need to make it safer for the kids because it’s gotten to the point where a 14-year-old can’t go outside,” says the 33-year-old Mother of three told The Post.

“I think we’d travel if they ever wanted to go outside…It’s been crazy with gun violence lately.”

Neftaly Gonzalez, 60, who lives at the nearby Edewald Houses, said New York City state is a “real tragedy.”

“A child can no longer go to the store. It’s terrible. You see people protesting all the time, but nothing has changed. You still see people being shot every day,” she said while sitting on a bench in the yard.

“At a young age like this, she has to live with the trauma for the rest of her life,” Gonzalez added.

“That should not have happened. It is a real tragedy what is happening today.”

In October alone, at least eight innocent bystanders were struck by stray bullets, including another 14-year-old who was shot in the leg in front of his Staten Island high school, the Post reported last month.

Police statistics show that shootings in the city have declined by a total of 15.7% this year compared to the same period last year. However, the number of shootings across the city has increased by more than 67% in the last five years, the statistics show.

The 14-year-old girl was one of four victims in four separate shootings across the five Thanksgiving boroughs – including two fatal incidents in the Bronx, according to police.

The NYPD said three people were shot dead on Turkey Day 2021.

A man was killed in a barrage in the Charlotte Gardens section of the Bronx around 10:40 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning, although the circumstances surrounding the shooting on Friday were still unclear.

Hours after the 14-year-old was shot, a 23-year-old was fatally shot in the Wakefield neighborhood of the Bronx.