Chaos in Times Square as teen gunman shoots innocent bystanders after opening fire in bustling NYC tourist mecca

Three people are injured after a dispute between two people ‘escalated’, police said

Three people were rushed to the hospital — including a tourist — after a teenage gunman opened fire in New York’s bustling Times Square overnight.

An 18-year-old female tourist in an Uber and a 65-year-old man on the sidewalk were struck as well as a 19-year-old the shooter may have been arguing with at around 1:20 am on Saturday, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department said.

A 17-year-old male suspect was arrested at the scene. Police said the shooting was sparked when a “verbal dispute between two people escalated”.

A police spokesperson told The Independent: "All were taken to Bellevue Hospital and are in stable condition. The perpetrator was engaged in a verbal dispute prior to the shooting with one of the victims. He has been taken into custody and a firearm was also recovered. He has not been charged yet.”

The incident took place on the street at the intersection of West 44th Street and Seventh Avenue. The 19-year-old was shot in the right foot and the 65-year-old was shot in the left leg.

Videos posted on social media showed people fleeing the scene and a car pulled over to the side of the road outside the Hard Rock Cafe.

Footage showed one person on a stretcher being wheeled into an ambulance, with policemen directing people away from the scene.

The gunman was inside the chain restaurant Raising Cane’s on Broadway when the dispute started, the New York Post reported.

The shooter went after the CitiBike rider he was arguing with outside the eatery and fired three shots at about a dozen CitiBike riders, striking the 19-year-old in the foot, The Post reported. The tourist suffered a graze wound to the neck as she rode in the for-hire car with her parents.

“It’s a very horrific experience,” the mom, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Post. “We decided to take our time to come to Times Square. We just felt that we would have a beautiful experience at night to see the whole city.”

She also had her 11-year-old twins in the Uber.

New York’s police commissioner announced only a few days ago that the city had seen the fewest shooting incidents and victims this year since records began. Over the first seven months of 2025, there were 412 shooting incidents and 489 shooting victims in New York.

It is the 10th straight month of decline in major crime in the city, the commissioner said but there have been some shocking incidents this summer.

In July, four people were killed in a chilling and cold-blooded shooting in a Midtown Manhattan high-rise office building that is home to the National Football League.

The suspect, 27-year-old Shane Tamura, died from an “apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound”. The police said the gunman walked into the office with a high-powered semiautomatic rifle and sprayed bullets indiscriminately in the lobby and on an upper floor.

Tamura, a former high school footballer, was targeting the headquarters of the NFL, the police said.

An officer, Didarul Islam, was killed in that attack, with the police department describing him as “the very best”.