Victim describes chaos at Huntington Station shooting

Minutes before she was shot in the leg in a parking lot of Jack Abrams Intermediate School in Huntington Station, the teenager said she had been at a friend's graduation party at a house nearby, according to a copy of her statement to Suffolk police.

In the July 11 incident, a fight erupted outside the house, the girl said, and for reasons unknown to her, partygoers ran from the house toward the school.

The 16-year-old, whom Newsday is not naming, said she followed the crowd and ran into the school parking lot. "I then heard three shots," the girl told police the day she was shot.

By this time, the girl said, she had lost two friends who had accompanied her to the party, and she attempted to get into a car filled with strangers. "They didn't want me to get in and said 'find your friends,' " she said.

The girl ran to the other side of the car, then ran back, and that's when she heard one or two more gunshots. "I felt pain in my right leg," she said. "I yelled 'I am shot! I'm shot!' "

The strangers who had rebuffed her moments earlier helped the girl into their car, she said, and one of them called police.

There was no mention in her statement that the girl knew who shot her.

The shooting is the most recent in a spate of violence in Huntington Station, where the school is located: a double shooting on July 6 and a stabbing on May 15. In March, gunshots were fired less than two blocks from the school while the campus was packed with students. After that incident, the school board asked the district superintendent to consider moving students out.

Police and prosecutors said the man who fired a .380-caliber handgun into the crowd July 11, striking the girl once in the leg, is Saheam King, 19, of Wyandanch. King was arraigned yesterday on a charge of second-degree assault with intention to cause physical injury with a weapon and first-degree reckless endangerment. He pleaded not guilty and was held on $100,000 cash or $500,000 bond.

His attorney, Jonathan Shebar of Wantagh, said King has no gang affiliation and has no criminal record. "He has no former history of violence," Shebar told First District Court Judge Joseph Santorelli.

King's mother and sister were at his arraignment in Central Islip but declined to comment.

"They're just surprised that the police think he's involved in the shooting," Shebar said outside court. "It's entirely inconsistent with any behavior in the past."

So far, Suffolk police and prosecutors have not released many details about the shooting, including how King was implicated or who was his intended target.

With Zeke Miller