Authorities have arrested a 17-year-old boy for fatally shooting a teen while she was walking home from school on Friday in New York, WABC-TV reports.
Jeremiah Ryan, 17, was charged on Saturday in connection with the shooting that killed 16-year-old Angellyh Yambo and left two other teens hospitalized. Investigators believe that Yambo and the other victims were tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time when Ryan allegedly began shooting in the South Bronx around 1:45 p.m. Friday.
Six shell casings were recovered from the scene at the corner of East 156th and St. Ann’s.
Yambo had just left Bronx Preparatory Charter School and is believed to have been walking to her home just a few blocks away. On Saturday, Yambo’s mother, Yanely Henriquez, told WABC-TV that she is heartbroken by the death of her daughter.
“I sent my daughter to get an education and she died,” Henriquez told the television station.
Yambo had just recently celebrated her 16th birthday days earlier, according to the New York Post.
“My baby was everything to me,” Henriquez told the Post. “I’m devastated, I’m broken. Half of me is gone.”
Yambo was hit in the chest while the other victims, a 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy, were struck in the leg and are expected to survive. All three were rushed to Lincoln Hospital, where Yambo was pronounced dead.
Henriquez urged authorities to do more to address the problem of rising gun violence.
“We have to do something, we have to do something. I don’t know to laws to be stricter about purchasing guns and all that stuff — something needs to be done,” Henriquez said, according to WABC-TV.
Authorities were able to locate Ryan in part using surveillance camera footage. Police went to arrest him around 12:30 a.m. Saturday, when officers reportedly saw him drop a bag from an apartment window.
Investigators found a gun inside the bag and say the gun appears to be an untraceable homemade firearm, otherwise known as a “ghost gun.” Parts for such guns can be purchased online.
It is not clear yet whether the gun found was the one used in Friday’s shooting.
Ryan faces charges of second-degree murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. Investigators believe he started shooting in the midst of a dispute with other people.
He reportedly does not have a criminal record.
“A child that has zero police contact at all. And he goes from smoking marijuana to killing somebody, and I just don’t have that answer for you,” NYPD Assistant Chief Timothy McCormack told WABC-TV.
Sources told the Post that Ryan was not involved with gangs but that he was associating with people who were bad influences.
Ryan is reportedly cooperating with investigators and is expected to be in court on Sunday.
Henriquez, the mother of Yambo, also had words for Ryan.
“For him, I will let God take care of it. I will let God take care of it, but I wish he dies in jail and pays for what he did to my child,” Henriquez told WABC-TV.
Still, Henriquez said she must be strong for her two other children, despite the senselessness of her daughter’s death.
“We are all devastated, we are numb, we are in disbelief. Now I have to get strong for my two older kids,” Henriquez told WABC-TV.
“I still don’t understand why. Why her? It’s questions after questions after questions.”
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[Feature Photo: Angellyh Yambo/Handout]
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