MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – A teen continued to fight for his life at Jackson Memorial Hospital after he was wounded in a shooting Thursday.
It happened around 2:30 p.m. along the 3800 block of Northwest 164th Street in Miami Gardens.
According to police, the 15-year-old victim, identified as Jacob Gittens, was walking with a group of at least four males when someone in the group opened fire and shot him in the back.
A neighbor who asked not to be identified told Local 10 News that she heard the shots before coming outside to see what had happened.
“I was working and I heard three gunshots,” she said. “When I came outside, I didn’t see anything, but when I was coming back inside, I heard somebody yelling ‘help me, help me!’”
She said she called the police and then applied pressure to the teen’s wounds, saying she noticed two bullet holes in his lower back.
“He was frantic. He needed someone to help him,” she said. “I’m a mother. If it was my child, I wouldn’t want him to be laying in the street somewhere, screaming and asking for help and no one wants to help him.”
The victim was taken by helicopter to JMH’s Ryder Trauma Center.
Officers are searching for the males who the victim was walking with before the gunfire rang out.
Anyone with information is urged to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.