A 13-year-old boy was shot in the head outside a Queens Dunkin’ Donuts Monday, leaving him on life support – as cops were on the hunt for a moped-riding youngster suspected in the shocking daytime violence, police and sources said.
The Martin Van Buren High School student was struck when the gunman – who sources say was toting a backpack with the “JAWS” movie logo – opened fire around 8:20 a.m. in front of the shop at the corner of Linden and Springfield boulevards in Cambria Heights, according to police.
Cops could not immediately confirm whether the teen was headed to school at the time that he was shot.
The youthful-looking suspect — who sported an afro and wore a black hoodie, black pants and white sneakers while carrying the distinctive bookbag — took off after the shooting, sources said.
“The kid came on a scooter,” said a worker at Evers Pharmacy next door, citing surveillance video of the violence.
“All of this was outside. He pulled up on a scooter, got off the scooter, got into an argument with another boy. Barely argued actually,” she said.
“He got into a fight, pulled out the gun, shot him, and then ran off.”
The cunning gunman changed into a white hoodie after the shooting, according to the sources.
The victim was taken to Cohen Children’s Medical Center for treatment of his life-threatening gunshot wound.
A 14-year-old girl who identified herself only as Mora said she saw a Citizen App notification about the shooting on her way to school – but didn’t realize until after dismissal that the victim was someone she had known for years.
She said she suspected her former elementary school classmate — “a good kid” — had fallen in with the wrong crowd.
“He was a quiet person from when I knew him, but I think he kind of matured a bit… He was still a cool person. He would always be friendly with people and play around,” she said.
“It might have been the group he was with … I don’t know if it was his friends, I just knew it was a little situation that happened that was way before. Not today,” she said, without elaborating.
A passerby said she spotted the ailing teen, and jumped in to help, calling 911.
“When I came out of my car, I was about to walk in the store, I heard another little boy saying, ‘He dead! He dead!’” recalled the woman, who did not want to be identified. “So I try to get him to breathe — I call 911, talking to him, telling him to ‘Breathe, breathe, breathe.’ He just start crying, and I don’t know.”
The 911 caller said she pressed the dispatcher to send an ambulance quickly.
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“And then as soon as I heard the sirens, that’s when he just tilt over and you see all the mucus coming out of his nose and his mouth,” she said, adding of the first responders, “They just swooped him up and they put him in the ambulance.”
The woman, who has a 5-year-old daughter, was shaken by the violence that hit so close to home.
“That could’ve been anybody’s kid,” she said through tears.The motive for the shooting remained under investigation.
The brazen shooting left Mora “extremely emotional because I grew up with him,” she said.
“It’s weird to hear that he got shot,” the teen said of her former classmate. “I don’t know how to feel. It’s just sad.
“The last time I saw him was on Thursday,” she added. “We were on the same bus. We didn’t say a lot. Just [said] hi.”
A 47-year-old woman who works at the Speedway gas station across the street said she never heard the gunshot, but witnessed the heartbreaking aftermath. “I saw the kid before the ambulance came,” she said. “A baby boy. Lying on the ground.”
Kids often stop into the Dunkin Donuts before heading to one of the nearby schools, the gas station worker said.
“I feel scared. Yes, as a mother,” she said. “I just dropped my 9-year-old off this morning before I came to work. This is very sad and very scary.”
The teen was still hospitalized on life support late Monday.
“There is nothing more devastating than yet another child becoming a victim of senseless gun violence,” Mayor Eric Adams posted on X. “Our hearts ache with the family and friends of this 13-year-old who is fighting for his life because of this epidemic.”
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