14-year-old girl killed, 5 other teens hurt in Buffalo shooting: Police

(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Saturday night outside a house party in Buffalo, New York, several blocks from the supermarket where a 2022 mass shooting occurred, according to police.

The shooting unfolded just after 11 p.m. in Buffalo’s East Side neighborhood where “several hundred” teenagers were gathered for a party, police said.

“This is a tragic day in the city of Buffalo. Overnight six young people shot between the ages of 14 to 16 years old,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said on his weekly radio show Sunday afternoon. “A 14-year-old girl is dead, a 15-year-old boy is in stable but critical condition. Fortunately, the other four children that were wounded will be OK.”

No arrests were announced as of Sunday afternoon. The Buffalo Police Department is asking anyone with information about the shooting to contact investigators.

“If you were shooting and you want to prove that you have a conscience, we would encourage you to come in. You owe it to the little girl that was killed and the family members,” Buffalo’s Chief of Detectives, William Craig Macy, said while giving an update on the shooting on Brown’s radio show.

Police are investigating whether multiple shooters were involved, Macy said, adding that detectives learned there were at least three handguns brought to the house party.

Macy said the shooting was preceded by a series of calls from area residents, including noise complaints and reports of a large group of teenagers fighting in the area. He said police responded to the earlier calls to disperse a “large chaotic scene.”

Macy said officers stayed at the scene for about a half hour and removed teenage trespassers from a nearby senior residential facility. But once officers left the area, police received calls of shots fired at 11:10 p.m. followed eight minutes later by a report of a person shot.

The victims were shot while outside a private house party on Alexander Place near Jefferson Avenue, Macy said at a news conference Sunday afternoon.

The 14-year-old girl was found mortally wounded at the scene and was taken to Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, where she was pronounced dead, police said. The name of the slain girl was not immediately released.

Four teenagers were taken by ambulance to the Erie County Medical Center, police said. One of the victims, a 15-year-old boy, was listed in critical condition on Sunday and the other three wounded teenagers were in stable condition, according to police.

A 16-year-old boy was grazed by the gunfire but declined medical treatment at the scene, police said.

A motive for the shooting remains under investigation. But Macy said investigators suspect the shooting was prompted by fights that broke out at the house party earlier Saturday evening.

Macy said several shell casings were found on Alexander Place in the vicinity of the house party.

Macy also said investigators would like to speak to anyone who was attending the gathering and may have witnessed the shootings. Investigators suspect “several hundred kids” were at the event when fights broke out, but “we have not heard from them,” Macy said.

The shooting happened five blocks from a Tops supermarket where a May 14, 2022, racially motivated mass shooting left 10 Black people dead and three other people injured.