A 13-year-old boy and an 18-year-old man were shot within blocks of each other in Corona, Queens, Friday night, and as of the following day no one had been taken into custody. Police said gunfire erupted around 8:30 p.m. near 39th Avenue and 103rd Street, sending both victims to the hospital with wounds to their extremities.
The younger victim was struck in the wrist, while the 18-year-old was hit in the ankle, according to cops cited by the New York Daily News. Separate reporting from the New York Post described the 13-year-old as wounded in the right arm and the 18-year-old struck in the left ankle, and noted investigators were still trying to determine whether the two knew each other or were deliberately targeted. Onlookers gathered at the scene as officers worked the intersection, but no suspects were immediately arrested.
Both victims were rushed to NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, where they were listed in stable condition. The hospital is a state-designated Level 1 Trauma Center with a 12-bed Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit that handles more than 1,500 trauma admissions a year, a status the American College of Surgeons reconfirmed in June 2025.
A Corridor Near Transit and Commerce
The shooting site sits about two blocks north of Roosevelt Avenue and the 103rd Street-Corona Plaza 7 train station, a busy commercial and transit corridor where public safety patrols have increased. The elevated 7 line runs directly along Roosevelt Avenue nearby, putting the shooting within a short walk of one of the neighborhood's busiest thoroughfares.
The block falls under the NYPD's 115th Precinct, which covers North Corona, Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, and LaGuardia Airport out of its stationhouse at 92-15 Northern Boulevard, commanded by Deputy Inspector David Cordano. It is the same precinct that recently sought tips after a bicyclist groped a 15-year-old girl in North Corona, according to prior Hoodline reporting.
Violent Crime Numbers Send Mixed Signals
NYPD CompStat data for the 115th Precinct shows shooting incidents fell 83.3% in 2025 compared to the year before, and overall reported crime dropped 11.3%. Yet the same data set shows felony assaults in the precinct climbed 71.7% between 2001 and 2025, a long-term trend that complicates the recent short-term progress. Citywide, state and city leaders announced in January that 2025 was the safest year for gun violence in New York City history, with the fewest shooting incidents and shooting victims ever recorded.
Corona has seen gun violence before this incident. In May, Queens police arrested a suspect in a December 2025 shooting outside a bodega near 108th Street that killed one man and wounded another, charging the 24-year-old with murder and four counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
What Comes Next Legally
If a suspect is eventually caught and found to have carried a loaded firearm in public, New York Penal Law § 265.03 makes Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree a Class C violent felony carrying a mandatory minimum of 3.5 years in state prison. Because one victim is 13 and the other is 18, any future defendant's case would also hinge heavily on age: under New York's Raise the Age law, a 13-year-old suspect would be handled in Family Court or Youth Part as a juvenile, while an 18-year-old suspect would face prosecution as an adult in criminal court.
Police have not said whether the shooting was random or targeted, and that question remains open. A 2025 study of trauma outcomes at Elmhurst Hospital Center, published in PubMed, found that penetrating injuries like gunshot wounds carried a 48% mortality rate in the 1,130 severe trauma cases it reviewed, compared with 13.8% for blunt trauma — a reminder of how serious the outcome could have been for both teens, even as doctors report they are expected to recover.
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