The mom of the Brooklyn teen left paralyzed in a tragic taking pictures hopes he might regain his capability to stroll, she mentioned Wednesday — as sources revealed the promising basketball participant was hit by a bullet meant for a church acquaintance.
Nana Effah Donkor, 16, was outdoors a Brooklyn bus cease Sunday with a pal after leaving a basketball event, when a fellow church goer strolled by and briefly greeted him, he instructed The Put up from his hospital mattress.
Moments later, three teenagers walked up and opened fireplace, he mentioned.
“Yo, that’s him!” he recalled one of many shooters blurted. “They had been speaking concerning the man subsequent to me and I took off. They weren’t speaking about me as a result of I didn’t know them.”
Donkor was operating for canopy when he “felt the ache and fell over” on Avenue J and East sixteenth Road in Midwood — leaving him paralyzed.
“The primary day he received shot, I got here and the report wasn’t good,” his mother, Danielle Boakye, mentioned in a telephone interview.
“The bullet went straight to his spinal wire. He wasn’t feeling his legs. They had been chilly.”
Her son underwent surgical procedure however medical doctors instructed her the bullet will do extra injury if it’s eliminated.
Miraculously, her son — a junior on the Far Rockaway Seahorses basketball crew — quickly began feeling sensation in his toes.
“That’s why I say I’ve hope,” she added. “I hope he’ll stroll once more, it’s only a matter of time.”
She described him as a hardworking scholar who excels on the courtroom and in his research.
Donkor, in the meantime, barely knew the meant goal — who police sources imagine is a gangbanger.
“I am going to church with him. That’s all I learn about him,” Donkor mentioned.
His frightened mother slammed mindless teen violence plaguing the Huge Apple.
“They need to cease,” Boakye mentioned. “If I had the facility…kids wouldn’t have entry to weapons.”
The suspects have but to be caught as of Wednesday evening.
Further reporting by Joe Marino
