FOCUS: YOUTH VIOLENCE
Fatal shooting of 14-year-old girl stuns East Side neighborhood
Three boys on bikes wanted for questioning
Nafeesah Woods wrapped her arms around an elementary school-age boy Wednesday as he wept into her chest, unable to cope with the shocking shooting death of a 14-year-old neighborhood girl.
“They’re all scared to death,” said Woods, a mother figure to the young people in this community on Buffalo’s East Side. “This is not Beirut. This is not the Third World.”
The previous night, shots rang out on Hagen Street as about 30 neighborhood kids were outside chatting and dancing.
Nancylia Salter, known as Nancy to the kids who live on Hagen, lay mortally wounded with a gun shot wound to the back.
A second child, Jerome Ingram, 13, was hit by bullet fragments to his back and triceps.
Police do not believe that Nancy or Jerome was the intended target of the shooting.
Investigators say three boys who were seen pedaling away after the shooting are wanted for questioning.
“It’s children shooting children,” lamented Arlee Daniels of the Stop the Violence Coalition.
“This was a 14-year-old child who is not going to graduate from high school. She’s not going to go to college. She’s not going to be able to leave a legacy . . . This is a child who just made it into her teens. She just had her first summer job.”
Nancy is the fifth teenager to die by gunfire this year in Buffalo. Eleven teenagers were killed last year in the city.
The children who witnessed Tuesday’s shootings recounted the terrifying events of the previous night to The Buffalo News. Fear was in their faces, and tears welled in their eyes.
“I heard six or seven gunshots, and it was right close to my head,” recalled 13-year-old Caloun Cummings, his voice shaking.
“I thought it was firecrackers at first, but then I was like, ‘They shootin’!’ I started to run . . . Then they said Nancy was shot so I went back.
“She was laying there like this,” said Caloun, as he positioned his arms up in the air to demonstrate. “I couldn’t believe she was gone.”
Another boy couldn’t stop pacing as he spoke about the shooting. “I just came back from playing football, and I saw her body,” said Jalen Ford, 15, his voice trailing off into a whisper as tears rolled down his face. “I couldn’t sleep all night. All I’ve been doing is thinking about it.”
Some of the boys were too frightened to even look at the body.
“It didn’t seem real to me,” said Paul Wyatt Jr., 15. “I didn’t want to see nothing. I didn’t know what to expect . . . ”
“I just stood there helpless,” said Paul, as he used the edge of his black T-shirt to wipe away his tears.
Woods said her whole family — even her toddler daughter — is shaken by the girl’s death.
Nancy had taken Woods’ 3-year-old daughter to the corner store with her a few hours before she was killed.
“Why should my 3-yearold have to see someone get shot?” Woods said.
Nancy, who lived nearby on Gerald Street, had been a fixture among the kids on Hagen.
She was a typical teenager who loved talking about the latest clothes, sneakers and dances. She was smart, talkative and outgoing, her friends said.
Neighbors say she was raised by her grandmother, who has been her foster mother since she was about 4.
The residents on this street have seen more than their share of grief and violence.
A year ago, another Hagen Street teenager, Devonte Murray, 15, was shot to death around the corner from where Nancy was killed. A second teen, Allen Stepney, 16, was also killed.
Devonte’s father, Charles Murray, stood on the sidewalk Wednesday watching as his neighbors created a makeshift memorial with teddy bears for Nancy at the site of the murder.
“We’re reliving it again,” Murray said.
When the gunfire erupted, he was on his way home. He got a call from his frantic wife and immediately thought the worst.
“When I pulled up, I saw the crime scene tape and the officers and the ambulance, and the first thing I did was call my [other] son . . . I started reliving what happened last year.”
Just two weeks ago, a man escaped a flurry of shots fired at him in a drive-by shooting in the 100 block of Hagen. The man told police he pulled out his own gun to fire back at his assailants and ended up shooting himself by accident.
And on March 11, a woman dropping off her children at a day care center in the 200 block of Hagen Street was fired at. Witnesses said they saw a group of seven men, all in red clothing, walking by when one of them fired two shots.
Two years ago, two men were shot five minutes apart in robbery-related incidents around Hagen Street. They survived. In 2006, a Cheektowaga man was shot and killed on Hagen.
Since the murder of Murray’s son, Murray has spoken to youths at community organizations and at schools. But he is discouraged. “It seems like I’m just speaking on deaf ears,” he said. “I just don’t have any answers.”
Murray believes that politicians are quick to grandstand in the aftermath of tragedies like this.
Woods echoed that sentiment.
“Where’s the accountability?” she asked. “We see the mayor but only when the story’s hot.”
“Get summer jobs for these kids,” she said, her voice rising with disgust. “We get a new firehouse, but our kids can’t get a new Boys and Girls Club. We need to be proactive. There’s $33 million in grants to the City of Buffalo, and what are they doing with it?”
Mayor Byron W. Brown said Wednesday he had instructed the Police Department to do “everything it can to help find those responsible for this horrible crime.”
Daniels said he hopes leaders will provide grief counseling to the children affected by Tuesday’s shootings.
He offered the conflict-resolution services of his group to any young person in need of help.
“If there is a young man or young woman who feels their back is against the wall, they can call us.” The hotline number is 882-7882. The e-mail address is stvcoalition@yahoo.com . As neighbors and children mourned Nancy’s death, Jerome’s mother sat on her porch with her wounded son, who had been released from Women and Children’s Hospital.
“I’m blessed, and I know it,” the woman, who would not give her name, said of her son’s minor injuries.
She said she was looking for a new and safer place to live.
vthomas@buffnews.com and mbecker@buffnews.com
