"An NYPD sergeant pulled his gun in a dimly lighted upper East Side apartment packed with partyers early yesterday - and accidentally wounded a 15-year-old boy when someone bumped the cop's arm, police sources said.
The sergeant, with 14 years on the force, told investigators he took out his weapon in the housing project apartment and pointed it at Luke Saintil when the teen appeared to reach for his waistband, the sources said.
But Luke, who was hit in the calf, disputed that account, as did other partygoers, among them the adult son of a local assemblyman.
Witnesses also suggested that cops entered the wrong apartment, saying the call for help police were responding to apparently came from another nearby building.
"I didn't reach into my waistband," Luke, of Staten Island, told the Daily News from his bed at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell.
Police sources said among the six uniformed officers who came to the ninth floor of 419 E. 93rd St. about 1:15 a.m., two sergeants drew their guns. One fired a single shot when someone bumped his arm, sources said.
"No one was even near him," Luke insisted. "He was in the center of the room."
A source said last night that it wasn't clear whether the youth was hit by a bullet or by a bullet fragment from a ricochet.
Police said they got a call to investigate a shooting and a fight involving guns at the ninth-floor apartment at the Stanley Isaacs Houses, a public housing complex. But witnesses among the 50 or so young adults and older teens at the party said there was no fight.
Luke, who friends said was drinking at the party - and who sources said has three past arrests - recalled looking at the cop before he was shot.
Then his leg went numb. "I began to hop," the Curtis High School student said. "I looked down and saw blood in my shoes and socks."
The shooting was under investigation late yesterday, and police couldn't immediately say whether it fell within guidelines or if there were clear rules governing cops' conduct in dark, crowded spaces.
"There's no training for every circumstance," a high-ranking police official said. "Sometimes it's a judgment call."
While police continued their investigation, Luke's mother said she's contacted a lawyer.
"My son is no angel, but he didn't deserve this," said Penny Saintil, adding the bullet or fragment in her son's leg couldn't immediately be removed because it is dangerously close to an artery. "They didn't have the right to shoot a gun into a room full of kids."
In an odd twist, Saintil said cops kicked her out of her son's hospital room about 5 p.m., claiming he was under arrest. In fact, Luke had not been arrested, and police officials insisted she was ordered to leave only until they could confirm she was his mother.
Police found an unloaded 9-mm. handgun in a closet after everyone had been cleared out, officials said.
A police source said a pair of siblings - identified by partygoers as Juanita, 20, and Raymond, 19 - could be charged in connection with the gun and for allegedly serving alcohol to minors.
Witnesses suggested that the cops responded to the wrong apartment. They said some officers were asking residents how to find 1809 First Ave., which is directly across the courtyard from the apartment where the teen was shot.
"I could see a fight on the other terrace," said Terrance Grannis, 21, referring to a 15th-floor apartment across the way. "I'm sure the cops came looking for that fight, but they saw so many people coming in and out of this building, they stopped here." "There was no fight here, just partying," said Grannis, the son of Assemblyman Pete Grannis (D-Manhattan)."
On any given weekend night, there are more fights, more gunshots, more minorities swinging and kicking and stomping and beating and knifing one another than can be attended to, so the police get a pass for showing up at perhaps the wrong jungle party.
Wait, someone in NY just did and the jury didn't believe him either. And he had to contend with a 5 pound pull versus the NY 1's 11 pound pull.
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