Police Pinpoint Origin of a Harlem Shooting

Police officials say they have linked a shooting at one of Harlem's busiest intersections this week to an ongoing dispute between two groups of young people who live 20 blocks north of the area.

The incident was one of five during the course of one night that left 10 people injured and the neighborhood reeling.

Six teenagers were hurt in the shooting at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue on Monday, and police said they had found new evidence to suggest the incident stemmed from simmering tensions between teenagers living along West 144th Street.

"Detectives believe that the shooters knew several of the victims with whom they had long-standing dispute from their neighborhood," a spokesman for the police department, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, said.

A 15-year-old was arraigned and released yesterday on criminal weapons charges related to the shooting, and police said they are looking for at least one other suspect.

Monday's shooting is the latest in a series across the city in the past month involving teenagers that has worried community leaders and the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly.

Police officials said they arrested 15-year-old Jamal Armstead yesterday for allegedly shooting Maurice McGiver, also 15, on the Upper West Side on Saturday. He was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

Police are searching for a suspect in the shooting of a 15-year-old in a separate incident in Harlem on Monday, and for the shooter who killed a 15-year-old girl, Brandon Bethea, in Far Rockaway this month.