Teen shot dead in NYC park when water gun fight during heat wave takes deadly turn, real bullets fly

A teenage boy was shot dead in a Bronx park Tuesday when a chaotic water-gun fight devolved and real bullets flew – leaving the kid’s heartbroken mom grieving her second son lost to city violence.

Darrell Harris, 17, was blasted in the head during a fight that erupted when another boy doused him with water from a gel-pellet gun in Starlight Park around 8 p.m. as a heat wave sent Big Apple temperatures soaring near 100, cops said. 

Harris charged at him before the gel-pellet gunman’s nearby pal opened fire with a real gun, sources told The Post.. The bullets struck Harris in the back of the head and his right arm as a crowd of teens gathered around them near Sheridan Boulevard and 173rd Street in the Crotona Park section of the Bronx, sources said.

Harris’s griving mom told reporters Wednesday that her son — who rarely left the house — promised he would be home at 9 p.m.s. 

“That is the most shocking part of it because he is not really outside,” said Kellis Lewis, 48. “The one time he does ask to go outside and this transpires.”

“He told me he was going to the park because his friends were having a water gun fight.”

“It’s hot. Kids want to play in the water,” she added. 

The shattered mom said the shocking shooting unfolded as her other son was celebrating his 20th birthday. 

Years earlier, her oldest child, Jamal Hunter, 27, was shot dead on a Bronx street in 2021.  

Lewis said Harris attended Bronx Leadership Academy High School and had no enemies. 

“He wasn’t a child who was out running in the streets or hanging out. That’s not who he was,” she said. 

The gunman — who was possibly wearing a ski mask — fled along with his water-fun wielding friend, according to cops. 

Investigators found a knife, four shell casings and multiple water guns at the blood-soaked scene, sources said.

Harris was taken to NYC Health and Hospitals/Jacobi in critical condition but later died. 

His shooter was still on the loose Tuesday afternoon.

Lewis and her remaining son were left devastated on his birthday.

“That’s what these kids don’t realize when they pick up these weapons,” she said. 

“You take someone’s life but the whole family is affected by a decision that you made so quickly. That wasn’t necessary.”