A 16-year-old boy has been charged with shooting a 4-year-old Staten Island girl who was jumping rope at a neighborhood party, cops said yesterday.
The arrests came as the victim, Victoria Evans, was released from the hospital yesterday.
The shooting suspect, Justin Lloyd, had gotten into an argument with a man inside the Mariners Harbor Houses that spilled out into the street at about 11 p.m. Sunday.
He then allegedly fired three shots from a 9 mm pistol at the man, missing him but hitting Victoria in the leg.
Victoria had been attending a neighborhood back-to-school barbecue with hundreds of other people. She was taken to Richmond University Medical Center, where doctors removed the bullet.
After the girl left the hospital, her mom, Shannon Davis, said, “She’s stronger than I thought she’d be.”
Despite the trauma, Victoria still has “a great personality and a sense of humor,” Davis said.
But Davis said some emotional scars still remain. “She keeps asking me, ‘Why did he shoot me? Is he going to shoot me again?’ ” the mother said.
The little girl was visited at home by her two best friends, who had witnessed the shooting.
Victoria sat in a wheelchair, wearing hospital-issued pajamas as she played with her pals, and told a reporter she was “fine.”
Lloyd was arrested Monday night and charged with assault, weapons possession and reckless endangerment.