Police have arrested a 14-year-old boy in Thursday’s shooting of a 13-year-old girl in Forest Hills Park.
The girl identified a suspect in the shooting, and police had been looking for him, said Lt. Gary Pleasants of the Charlottesville police. The boy’s parents turned him in at the police station Friday, Pleasants said.
“His parents were very cooperative,” the lieutenant said.
The shooter was aiming at another boy but hit the girl instead, Pleasants said. The shooting came amid an altercation involving several people, according to police, and happened just after 6 p.m. near the park’s pavilion.
Police believe only one shot was fired.
The unnamed teenager police have arrested is charged with attempted malicious wounding, malicious wounding, two counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony and discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school.
The girl he shot was hit once in the leg, according to police. She was treated at the University of Virginia Medical Center and released, according to authorities.
Police haven’t recovered the handgun used in the crime and don’t know where the 14-year-old got it, Pleasants said.
The park, located on Forest Hills Avenue, has been the scene of several other disturbances recently, and police and other city departments are working to improve public order there, he said.
Police are asking anyone with information on the shooting to call Sgt. Shawn Bayles at (434) 566-1393.
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