Eric Collins was arrested Thursday on charges of reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon in the bizarre episode Sunday in the tranquil Riverdale neighborhood.
The New York Police Department's chief spokesman, Paul Browne, says the 27-year-old Collins was moving into his grandparents' former Riverdale home and fired off an arrow into a fence.
Police believe Collins had about a half-dozen arrows and shot one into the white fence, a relatively short distance. It went through the fence and ricocheted up, hitting Denise Delgado-Brown in the stomach as she escorted people to the nursing home next door, police said.
"I thought that maybe somebody had hit me with a baseball," she said during an interview earlier this week. "It just happened so quickly. I just couldn't believe it."
The 51-year-old was wounded on Sunday as she stepped out of her car while dropping a friend off after church.
Delgado was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital where she underwent two hours of surgery. She has since been released.
Collins, a plumber, was being held at a police stationhouse in the Bronx. No one immediately returned messages left at possible phone numbers for him in Riverdale and Yonkers, and police didn't know his lawyer's name.
Investigators canvassing the area Thursday afternoon came across Collins while he was walking two or three dachshunds. Eyewitness News cameras watched as Collins was smoking, drinking and telling police he didn't know anything about the arrow incident. But police were persistent.
"When he was spoken to the second time that he acted in a nervous manner. They asked him if he would go to the stationhouse and talk to them about the event . He agreed to go to the stationhouse," NYC Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly said.
Police also said the carbon aluminum arrow was a type used for target practice and capable of traveling more than 300 yards.
"The arrow itself, I am told, is called a Black Hawk 4000 and it can travel up to 1000 yards, so that's the area we are looking at," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
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