A 16-year-old gang member was charged with attempted murder on Wednesday night over the shooting of an NYPD cop in the Bronx a night earlier, police said.
The suspect’s gun went off while he was tussling with the officer – identified by sources as Kaseem Pennant, 27 – outside a building at Lorillard Place near East 187th Street in Belmont around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, cops said.
The single round struck the teen in the groin before hitting Pennant in the right leg, police said.
The shooting unfolded after Pennant and five other officers from the 48th Precinct’s public safety team responded to a disorderly crowd at the location, authorities had said.
As the officers approached the group, the teen – identified as a member of the Reywey Crew, a subset of the Crips – stepped toward a white car and put his hands in his pockets, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said.
Officers repeatedly asked him to show his hands, but he refused, leading to the struggle, police said.
Pennant was released from the hospital Wednesday morning.
The suspect, whose name has not been released because he is a minor, was also charged with criminal possession of a firearm and criminal use of a firearm, police said.
The teen was previously arrested in the Bronx in May 2020, when he was just 14, for possession of a Tauris firearm, authorities said.
He was charged as a juvenile in the first bust and was placed on probation last month, Essig said. His probation is set to end in May.
