#Neighbor of Brooklyn boy hurt in shooting slams NYPD funding cuts

Enlarge Image

Brooklyn police conduct an evidence search after an 11-year-old was shot in the thigh.
William C. Lopez/NYPOST

A family friend of an 11-year-old Brooklyn boy wounded by a stray bullet bemoaned local violence and said that the recent reduction of NYPD funding will likely only breed more.

“This is a notorious block,” said Ulrich Mierez of the East Flatbush stretch where the pre-teen was shot late Tuesday. “Now the NYPD got their budget cut, I’m upset about that.

“With fewer police around, what do you think is going to happen?”

Around 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, a shooter opened fire from a car on East 29th Street between Clarendon Road and Avenue D, according to cops and police sources.

But the only person hit was the pre-teen, who sources confirmed was not the intended target.

“I was watching TV upstairs and I heard something. I thought it was firecrackers going off,” said Mierez, 69. “Then I heard people screaming and I saw the cops coming.

“Thank God he’s alive.”

The victim, whose name is being withheld by The Post, was struck in the right leg and right side of his buttocks, according to sources.

He was rushed to Kings County Hospital, where he was being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

No arrests had been made as of Wednesday afternoon, as cops hung up posters announcing a $2,500 reward for information near the scene.

The shooting came in the final hours of a blood-soaked June that saw New Yorkers shot at a rate not seen in the month since 1996.

It also came as city lawmakers hammered out a budget for the next fiscal year that included approximately $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD’s approximately $6 billion coffers, in response to weeks of protesters’ calls to “defund” the department.

“He’s a nice kid. I’ve known him since he was born,” said Mierez of the shooting victim. “He didn’t deserve this.”