3 Injured in Times Square shooting

NEW YORK – A 17-year-old boy was arrested Saturday in connection with an early morning shooting that wounded three people in the heart of Times Square, police said.

The boy, who was not publicly identified, was charged around 5:30 p.m. with attempted murder, assault and related charges, according to police.

The shooting happened, police said, just before 1:30 a.m. Saturday at the intersection of West 44th Street and Seventh Avenue, in one of the most bustling tourist districts in the world.

The violence erupted after the suspect got into an argument with a 19-year-old man, pulled out a gun and began firing, police said. Bullets struck the 19-year-old on his right foot and injured two other victims – an 18-year-old woman who was grazed on her neck, and a 65-year-old man who was hit in his left leg.

Officers in the area heard the gunshots and ran to the intersection, police said.

Emergency medical workers took all three victims to Bellevue Hospital, where they were in stable condition as of Saturday, police said.

After Saturday’s shooting, police shut parts of Seventh Avenue and Broadway in the area, and more than a dozen police cars lined the streets.

Ahmed Talal was in his ice cream truck at Seventh Avenue in the mid-40s when he heard the gunshots. He said he looked down Seventh toward 45th and 44th streets and saw three people running down the street in his direction, “followed by about 10 cops.”

An hour and a half after the shooting, there were crowds of people walking and gawking along the six blocks that police had cordoned off. But it was about half the number of people he would normally see, even at 3 a.m. on a Saturday, Talal said.

“That’s why I’m closing up early,” said Talal, who usually stays open until dawn on summer weekends, as he handed a waffle cone to a lone customer.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.