Newsday (New York)
NEW YORK, N.Y. (AP) - An off-duty police officer shot and wounded a 15-year-old boy during a confrontation at a Staten Island pond known as a popular gathering place for teenagers, police said.
The incident began shortly before 10 p.m. Friday, when a group of 15 to 20 teens at Jack’s Pond on Adrienne Place began to grow rowdy, police said. The commotion brought residents of the ordinarily quiet neighborhood, in the Great Kills section on Staten Island’s south shore, to their windows, police said.
A loud bang was heard, and the off-duty officer, who lived nearby, left his house to investigate, police said.
Once the officer reached the pond, he and the 15-year-old began to argue, and the officer ordered the teen to lie on the ground, police said.
For reasons that remained unclear early Saturday, the officer then fired two shots, one of which hit the boy in the groin, said Sgt. Michael Wysokowski, a police department spokesman. The teen was taken to Staten Island University Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.
The officer, a captain who had been with the NYPD for about 20 years, was being questioned, police said.