A 16-year-old boy has been charged with manslaughter for the death of a teen girl shot in the head as he played with a gun inside a Queens home, police said Monday.
The suspect, whose name was not released because he is a minor, was taken into custody when police first got to the Holliswood home about 5:15 p.m. Saturday. Cops found 17-year-old Deaza Barkley with a gunshot wound to her head.
Medics rushed the victim from the house on Clover Place near Foothill Ave. to Jamaica Hospital but she could not be saved.
The suspect was charged with manslaughter and gun possession. The gun was recovered at the scene, police said.
It wasn’t immediately clear to whom the gun belongs.
The house is owned by a relative of the boy, who lives elsewhere, police said. The moments leading up to the shooting are still being investigated, police said.
Deaza lived in East New York, Brooklyn, and had a younger brother and older sister, a friend of her devastated mom said Sunday as he visited the mourning family.
“I’m so lost for words,” said the friend, who didn’t give his name. “I’ve known [Deaza] since she was 3 years old, 4 years old.”
“Her mom called me this morning crying,” he added. “I asked her ‘What’s going on?’ She told me what happened. I said, ‘I’m on my way.’”
but in a brief interview Deaz’s mother made it clear.
Deaza was a high school senior and cheerleader who loved to dance, according to a friend of the victim.
“She was loving,” said the friend. “She was caring. I’m so confused. She was the quiet type. She did her schoolwork. She’s never been in trouble.”
“That’s why I’m so confused,” she added. “I’m just trying to find out what happened.”
At the shooting scene, a neighbor on the sleepy residential block said she was “absolutely not shocked” to hear what happened, given the number of people who cycle in and out of the home.
“If I say that it’s a multifamily home, I’m giving it dignity,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “Honestly, it’s almost like a boarding house, almost like a shelter. If a group comes in, another group goes out.”
The woman and her husband alleged they’ve watched people scaling the roof and slipping through windows, while dogs are frequently left outside in the cold, barking through the night in the backyard.
“If anything was gonna happen on this block, it was gonna happen there,” said the neighbor’s husband. “I think more is going on than what just happened.”
