Exclusive: Teen girl shot in front of Queens school speaks out amid news of arrests
JAMAICA, Queens (WABC) -- The innocent 16-year-old girl shot by a stray bullet in Queens is now out of the hospital and recovering at her home in Richmond Hill.
Ashley Armoogan is in pain and traumatized, but she's also grateful that she's alive to talk about it.
"I was really trying hard. I didn't want to sleep. I was like, if I close my eyes, I feel like I'm just never going to wake up again," she said.
"The bullet is real close to one of her main arteries and they can't do surgery because it's a life or death situation," her father Ravie Armoogan said.
That life or death situation means the bullet that struck Ashley will likely stay lodged in her shoulder.
"If they take it out it's more of a risk, if I do surgery, it's going to be more of a risk and if it goes wrong I could bleed death," Ashley said.
Ashley was leaving the New Dawn Charter High School Monday, when she heard gunshots and started running; quickly realizing she was the one who was shot.
Police say that shooting and the deadly shooting of 14-year-old Aamir Griffin on the basketball court last weekend was likely the result of gang violence.
"I feel like that could have been me. I could have been dead too, but I'm happy that I'm still here. I still feel sorry for him and his family, He didn't really deserve it. He was a good kid," Ashley said.
The NYPD is investigating to see if the same gun was used in both shootings.
"We have two groups, tend to be young kids, 15 to 16 is the ages that keep coming up. Fighting each other. There have been a number of incidents," said Dermot Shea, NYPD Chief of Detectives.
"These gangs, I don't know what they're going to do. They have to do something about these gangs. It's not good," Ashley's father said.
Photos shared by her father show Ashley earlier this year, radiating at her sweet 16 party. She plans to study law, and in fact, that is why her parents moved her to that charter school just this fall.
"And she liked the school," her dad said. "She said it's a very good school."
"Will she ever be able to go back to that school?" Eyewitness News Reporter Derick Waller asked.
"Not at all. She told me she is not going back to that school. She told me she doesn't want to go back to that area at all," Armoogan said.
Now, they are even considering moving away from Queens all together.
However, right now, the focus is getting Ashley back on her feet.
One teen boy was arrested Wednesday in the shooting, along with two other teenage boys, for shots that were fired an hour earlier in the same police precinct.
The suspect, who is from Queens, has been charged with attempted murder, two counts of assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon.
Police in Jamaica are stationing themselves outside school so kids feel safe coming and going.
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