An innocent bystander who was struck by a bullet on a Brooklyn street during an apparent drive-by shooting Tuesday evening described the terrifying moment she realized she had been hit.
Alia Abdul-Raheem, 32, was walking down Malcolm X Boulevard to her Bedford-Stuyvesant home after work around 7 p.m. when she heard gunshots ring out.
“I looked up and I saw a car driving by pretty fast, and the windows were down, and it sounds like the gunshots are coming from the car,” Abdul-Raheem, who works at a record label, told The Post Wednesday.
“Then the next second later, I just felt this, like this hit on my chest, and I looked down, and there’s a hole in my coat, through my shirt.”
In a state of shock, Abdul-Raheem rushed home as fast as she could.
“At the time, I couldn’t feel any blood. I didn’t really know what had just happened. I was just in pain and kind of shocked, and I continued to walk home.”
It wasn’t until she got there, that she realized how serious her situation was.
“And I got home, and my sister opened up my coat and she could see the big gash and wounds on my chest,” she said.
Abdul-Raheem went to New York Presbyterian’s emergency room, where nurses immediately had her see a doctor, who examined the wound and did an X-ray.
Fortunately, the bullet didn’t enter her chest. Police reported the injury as a graze wound.
Abdul-Raheem said the doctor told her that “all things considered,” she was lucky — “it could have been really a lot worse.”
A 15-year-old boy was also shot by the same suspect or group of suspects, police said.
The teen was struck in the left ankle on Chauncey Street near Malcolm X Boulevard, cops said. Investigators believe he was the intended target, according to sources.
He was rushed to the hospital in stable condition.
Less than 24 hours after the shooting, Abdul-Raheem said she is physically sore and mentally in shock.
She said she’s lived in the neighborhood for eight years and never felt unsafe, but she expects the first few times she does that same walk to and from the subway for her work commute to be difficult.
“It’s scary. I’m a bit shaken up,” she said.
Abdul-Raheem wants the city to get guns off the streets — and out of young teens’ hands.
“The kid who was shot was 15. I could tell the kids were young. They don’t even know what they’re doing — why [do they have] guns?
“It was 7 o’clock on a Tuesday. If we had better gun control, this would have never happened,” she said.
There have been no arrests as of early Thursday morning, police said. The investigation is ongoing.
