In the early morning hours of Tuesday, a 17-year-old boy was shot several times in the torso near his Upper West Side high school.
The shooter, identified as Cheick Coulibaly, 19, was arrested a short time later and charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal use of a firearm, and criminal possession of a weapon.
Coulibaly, who was out on bail for an armed robbery case from 2021, allegedly shot the victim in a dispute that began two blocks north of the shooting location, involving four or five teenage boys.
The victim managed to stagger to his school, The Maxine Greene High School for Imaginative Inquiry, for help. The nearby LaGuardia High School of Music was also placed on lockdown.
Coulibaly fled the scene in a yellow cab, but witnesses notified the police, and he was apprehended a block away from the shooting location. The victim underwent surgery and is expected to survive.
According to Chief of Patrol John Chell, Coulibaly has three prior arrests, including two narcotics arrests in The Bronx and the armed robbery with a firearm charge for which he was indicted in 2021 in Manhattan. He made bail in November and is awaiting arraignment on the current charges.
Later that day, around 1 p.m., a 16-year-old boy and a 27-year-old male bystander were shot at East 129th Street and Madison Avenue, in what police sources believe to be a possible retaliatory strike for the earlier shooting.
The teen, who was on his first day at Harlem Renaissance High School, and four other students were out for lunch when three men approached them, and a fight broke out.
Bullets flew during the brawl, and both victims were shot in the leg. The three suspects fled the scene, and police believe the shooting was gang-related.
In the afternoon, a report of shots fired at East 105th Street and Park Avenue led police to believe that the three incidents were connected. Although no one was struck, four shell casings were recovered at the scene.
No arrests have been made in those cases. Chief Chell suspects that the shootings were gang-motivated, citing proximity, geography, the age of the victims, and confirmed incidents as evidence.
»Teenage Victim Survives Shooting at Upper West Side, Suspect in Custody«
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