A teen shoplifter in a Times Square clothing store shot a tourist with a bullet intended for a security guard Thursday — then shot at police whom he outran — according to cops sources.
The shooter was with two other teens inside JD Sports on the corner of W. 42nd St. and Broadway when security started eyeing him around 7 p.m., a store employee told the Daily News.
When the trio tried to leave the store, a guard stopped them at the door. One of the teenagers walked outside, but two stayed.
As the guard talked to the duo, she took a shopping bag one of them was holding. Inside was a coat the teens were trying to steal.
“He was trying to steal and [security] were trailing him,” said JD Sports employee Hewitt Jackson. “They tried to take the bag from him and he pulled a gun and tried to shoot a security guard.”
The security guard ducked and the bullet hit a woman shopping nearby, according to a Danish tourist.
“I was standing right next to her,” Lone Hanson, 62, told The News. “She was just shopping with her girlfriend. I heard a boom and she was shot.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Hanson added. “It’s my first day in New York.”
The woman suffered a gunshot wound to the left leg. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.
“She was standing there saying, ‘Help, Help,’” said a witness who did not want to be named. “I took her shirt off of her and tied it to her leg.”
“I was asking her if everything was OK and she said she doesn’t speak English,” the woman added. “She was from Brazil.
Staffers at the store ushered shoppers, including the wounded woman, into the back room while police rushed to the scene.
“I was shocked,” said the witness. “People were running and I started to panic.”
The gunman ran outside, where he met an accomplice who had walked out of the store before the shooting. Also outside was a police officer who ran after the robbers but began to have trouble breathing during the chase.
He was rushed to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell in stable condition, the sources added.
At some point during the chase, one of them fired shots at officers but struck no one, police sources said.
The teens continued running north, leaving behind a trail of clothes at W. 48th St. and Sixth Ave. to W. 51st and Sixth Ave., police sources said.
Cops are still searching for them.
