By Joe Anuta
A teenager who had just finished high school was killed and three others injured in a St. Albans shooting early Sunday morning, police and the teen’s family said.
The group was walking along 157th Street near 113th Avenue at around 4:15 a.m. when shots were fired, according to police.
Terrell Fountain, 18, was shot in the chest, back and arm, and the other three victims — ages 16, 17 and 18 — were hit in the leg, arm and buttocks, police said.
All four were rushed to Jamaica Hospital, where Fountain was pronounced dead, according to police.
“It’s just senseless,” said Fountain’s aunt Shanel Cherry-Mitchell, who noted that the 18-year-old had graduated from an upstate high school Friday and was only back in Queens to visit. “What goes around will come around.”
Neighbors said they heard an argument and then several gunshots. One neighbor said that there was six shots, while another said there was as many as 17 fired.
A police source said the attackers emerged from two black cars and attacked the victims.
Hours after the shooting, crime scene investigators collected evidence along 113th Street and mapped the likely trajectory of bullets that had pierced fences and the back of a minivan along the residential street.
Neighbors were not allowed to move their cars as the NYPD investigated the area, and little girls jumped rope in a driveway near yellow crime scene tags.
In nearby Springfield Gardens, Fountain’s family gathered in disbelief.
Fountain had planned on attending Sullivan Community College in Loch Sheldrake, NY to study liberal arts.
“He always had something funny to say. He was original,” said his stepfather Michael Segars. “The world is going to miss a person who could have made a change in people’s lives.”
Fountain was a sharp student, his family said, and like many gifted kids caused his teachers considerable grief when he hung out with his large circle friends instead of pouring over textbooks.
“If he missed class, the teachers would call me: ‘Do you know how talented he is?’” Segars said.
The Queens native had talked about wanting to become a lawyer in order to help others.
Fountain also participated in a variety of extra-curricular activities to keep himself busy.
“Any activity he did, he did it well,” Segars said.
Fountain and other friends in his neighborhood played sports, worked on art projects and started a breakdance crew called Team Up, according to his mother Brigitte Hoggard and fellow teammates.
“It was mostly just to stay out of trouble,” said friend and fellow dance crew member Nigel Ervin. “It was like a neighborhood team.”
And all the work that Fountain and his friends put into staying out of trouble is precisely is why Fountain’s family was so surprised Sunday.
“I don’t know if it had to do with one of his friends, or if it was just a person who has no regard for human life,” Segars said. “I hope and pray the police will find and catch this person.”
Reach reporter Joe Anuta by e-mail at januta@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
