Teenager stabbed in back on Queens street

NEW YORK

"I hear someone screaming outside, and she said, 'Mommy! Mommy!'" said Wendy Martinez, the victim's mother.

Her mother says at first she thought her 17-year-old daughter, Natasha, forgot her keys Monday night, but when she came downstairs to their front door in Woodhaven, Natasha Martinez was bleeding.

"That kind of feeling you hold your own child with bleeding and you feel like you almost die, and she told me, 'Mommy, I'm almost going,' and I told her, 'No, you not got to go, got to stay alive," Martinez said.

Her mother tried to stop the bleeding until help arrived and police recovered a small knife at the scene on 85th Street near 88th Avenue, but right now they're still searching for a motive.

Natasha was on her way home from her job at a McDonalds in Ozone Park and police are searching surveillance cameras to see if she was being followed.

"What we do also, is go to locations that are not immediately at the point of the crime, because you can pick up a person coming to or from the scene," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

Meanwhile, Natasha was rushed to Jamaica Hospital, with stab wounds all over her body. Fortunately, she is now in stable condition.

"They found 10 (wounds). Stabbed everywhere and deep and close to the heart. She almost about to die," Martinez said.

Residents on the block wonder if the attack was random, and if so, how safe are they?

"Terrible, terrible, as a parent you hate to hear this kind of stuff," said Mike Hanley, a Woodhaven resident.

"It's just ridiculous. This stuff shouldn't be happening around here. There's a lot of kids, the girl was only 17 years old," said Matt Ingram, a Woodhaven resident.

The suspect is described as a black male, 5 feet tall, 150 pounds, wearing a white t-shirt and dark colored pants. He fled northbound on 85th Street towards Jamaica Avenue.

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