WESTERLEIGH — A group of men shot several people with a paintball gun throughout Staten Island, including one incident police are investigating as a hate crime, the NYPD and a victim said.
On Saturday, Renee Mafaro, 45, was walking her brother's Yorkie, Spirit, on Auburn Avenue at about 10:30 p.m. when an SUV with a group of men started to drive near her, she said.
Mafaro turned onto Collfield Avenue when the men blew through the stop sign to follow her, she explained. A person in the front passenger seat pointed a gun at the dog, which Mafaro shielded, resulting in her being struck in the right thigh and back.
"I thought I was getting killed," said Mafaro, who works as a concierge in Manhattan. "Every time I look at [the bruise], I get such anxiety thinking about it because they could have killed that dog."
The attacks were first reported by the Staten Island Advance.
The SUV stopped at the corner, and Mafaro ran home with the dog and called the police.
Mafaro posted pictures of her bruises to Facebook and heard from three other people who also said they got shot with paintballs nearby on Saturday and Sunday, including an elderly man, two teenage girls and a cyclist who was shot in the back of the head.
Police had no details on the other incidents but said a similar attack occurred on June 10, when a 67-year-old Orthodox Jewish man walking on Westwood Avenue was hit with a paintball, a spokeswoman for the NYPD said. The NYPD started to investigate that attack as a hate crime on July 11.
The 122nd Precinct tweeted a picture of an SUV in connection with the assaults on Monday, but a NYPD spokeswoman had no details about any of attacks mentioned in the post.
Any info regarding the listed vehicle, plz call #CrimeStoppers at #800577TIPS pic.twitter.com/w8hFB78Ema
— NYPD 122nd Precinct (@NYPD122Pct) July 13, 2015Mafaro, who said her leg is still stinging from the shooting, thought the paintball likely would have killed her brother's 4-pound dog if he was hit.
She didn't view the shooting as a "harmless prank."
"They gear up when they go [paintballing], they prepare with armor," she said. "These guys know that this is going to hurt."
