Aug 14, 2008 7:09 pm US/Eastern
Teen In Bed Struck, Killed By Bullet From Below
Police: Round Penetrated Floor, Hit Victim While He Slept
NEWARK (CBS) ―
He wasn't even safe in his own bed.
Newark Police say a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed by a bullet that came from the apartment below.
CBS 2 HD spoke on Thursday with the young victim's family.
Neighbors identified one woman who spoke to us as the grandmother of the boy shot and killed. Alongside her was his girlfriend.
"[He] was not like all the other kids, not like a gang banger," the woman said. "He was like a regular old kid.
Shot and killed was 15-year-old Bukhari Washington, who was asleep when he was hit in the head by the bullet. The bizarre incident happened just before 9 a.m. at the New Community Houses on Newtown Street. Police said 19-year-old Terrance Perry, a hospital orderly at Beth Israel in Newark, fired a shot from an assault rifle. The bullet went through the ceiling and into the floor above.
"It looks like he was fiddling with it in some way and it fired," Newark Police Director Garry McCarthy said.
According to the suspect's aunt, in whose apartment the shot was fired, the teen got the gun for protection because he had been a victim of violent crime.
"From when he got robbed in front of my door with a machine gun," Fatima Perry said.
The suspect's father agreed with that account.
"He been getting robbed around here," Terrance Perry Sr. said. "I didn't know he had a gun, but he did and it was for protection."
McCarthy wasn't too keen on that explanation.
"I think it's absurd ... absurd ... absolutely absurd," McCarthy said.
Friends of the teen who was killed are distraught over the deadly accident.
"I feel hurt. I want to cry, but it won't come out. I feel … it's crazy," Teshawn Harrison said.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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