Three people were wounded by the 15-year-old boys’ bizarre weapon of choice in the frightening, random attacks, police and witnesses said.
“I felt like someone was hunting,” said a stunned Arkadiy Shklyaver, 52, who was hit in the stomach by one of the 3-inch, green-tipped darts allegedly shot by the young suspects on a Bensonhurst street corner at around 7:15 p.m. Sunday.
One suspect, Gustavo Vasquez, was busted last night after cops scouring rooftops walked down to the second floor of a two-story building. They knocked on the door — and the kid appeared and “basically copped to it,” a law-enforcement source said.
His mom agreed to a search of the apartment on 86th Street, and “we recovered additional darts from the kid’s room. No blow gun, though,’’ the source said.
The teen told cops that he had an accomplice, another 15-year-old. Cops were still seeking that suspect, who they said has a criminal past.
Vasquez said his pal had the blow gun.
“He did not provide further reason for why he shot the people or how he or [his alleged accomplice] got hold of the blow gun,” the source said.
Cops said the teens’ three victims, all men, were not together, but were within yards of each other when the shooters left them bruised and bloodied with a barrage of at least 10 darts blown by mouth from about 25 feet away.
Georgiy Ostrozhnyuk, 66, was sitting with neighbor Dmitriy Volper in Volper’s SUV chatting at the corner of 86th and Bay 32nd streets when several darts flew in through the car’s open windows.
“Suddenly, I felt like a punch in my thigh. I saw a needle in my leg and the second time in my stomach,’’ Ostrozhnyuk said.
“I was very afraid. We did not know if the needle was poison. [Volper] closed the windows, but needles continued to knock on the window and the car.’’
“I heard my friend screaming,’’ Volper said. “One little dart was in his leg. Maybe two to three seconds later, another goes in his stomach. His T-shirt was covered with blood.”
Volper said he tried to get out of the car to see who was shooting the darts, but Ostrozhnyuk stopped him.
“He said, ‘Get down, get down, they’ll shoot you in the head,’ ” Volper said.
Pedestrians Shklyaver and Ming Chen, 40, were then hit by a total of three more darts.
Shklyaver was struck in the stomach and Chen in the leg.
“It felt like something bit me,” said Shklyaver, of Pennsylvania, who was walking to a subway station after visiting his mother in the area. “I took out the dart, and there was blood on my hand.”
The victims were treated at Coney Island Hospital and released, officials said.
Police said preliminary testing on the 10 recovered darts showed no evidence of poison or any other dangerous substance on them.
[nypost.com]
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