Queens teen struck by stray bullet inside home says gun violence in US ‘absolutely insane’
By Bryan Ke
A teenager from Queens, New York City, who was shot inside her home while studying last year has not let the incident that “should not have happened” drag her down.
Speaking to the New York Post, Tamima Samira, now 16, recalled the night of June 7, 2022, saying that her family thought someone had set off fireworks during the first 10 seconds of the shooting.
She only realized she was struck by a bullet when she felt pain in her right shin.
The Bronx High School of Science student, who is originally from Bangladesh, said that the motive behind the shooting remains a mystery.
“I think someone should have been arrested by now,” Samira said. “We don’t know who did it. We don’t know what their intentions were. And like, that’s scary. And that’s honestly terrifying.”
Samira, whose family moved to the U.S. from Bangladesh when she was a toddler, noted that she is now in a good place emotionally.
“I feel fantastic,” she said. “Never been better. I was raised in New York City. I don’t think I could ever imagine myself living anywhere else. But in terms of like, how am I feeling about the incident in general? I feel like, you know, that shouldn’t have happened.”
The June 2022 incident started just after 11 p.m. outside Samira’s family home on 113th Rd. in Saint Albans near Francis Lewis Boulevard in Queens.
Samira, who was 15 years old at the time, was studying in her family’s dining room when three men reportedly started firing at each other in the middle of the street. Samira’s home was reportedly hit over 20 times; the front door notably had several holes while a back wall of the living room had one hole.
After realizing she had been shot, Samira instructed her father not to open the front door.
“I’m absolutely certain that if my dad had opened the door at that moment, he would have been shot, too,” she shared.
Speaking to Fox 5 NY after the incident, Samira said she heard two other bullets enter their house beside the bullet that went through a window and hit her leg.
Her mother immediately tied a tourniquet around her leg and proceeded to call 911. Samira was later brought to Long Island Jewish Children’s Hospital in stable condition.
Confused by the incident, Samira and her family believe that they were not the intended victims of the shooting.
“We have no enemies,” Samira’s father, Mohammad Hossain, told the New York Post.
Samira and her family have become more conscious of gun violence in the country following the incident.
“To live in a country where you have more shootings in a year than you have days is absolutely insane,” she told the New York Post.
Samira’s father also shared his views on gun violence in the U.S., telling New York Daily News: “This is not anybody’s single problem. This is the whole community’s problem, our whole country’s problem. So we have to think about, everybody, how to solve this problem.”
There have been around 263 cases of mass shootings reported across the country this year as of Monday, according to Gun Violence Archive.
New York City reportedly saw a 26.1% drop in shooting incidents in March to 85 from last year’s record of 115 during the same month, as per the NYPD’s citywide crime statistics.
Despite the incident, Samira never let the night of June 7, 2022, bring her down, saying that she was unfazed by what happened.
“I’m very resilient, and that has been one of my defining traits since the moment I was born … and that has been instilled within me by the people who have cared for me all my life. And I think that’s really special,” she told the New York Post.
No arrests have been made so far as the NYPD has said the investigation is ongoing.
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