Three More Arrested in Vada Vasquez Shooting

BY Wil Cruz, Sarah Armaghan, Rocco Parascandola and Rich Schapiro
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Credit Harbus /Friends and neighbors show their support for Vasquez (below), the Bronx girl who was shot in the head in a stray bullet shooting, Tuesday night.

Cops busted three more suspects, including a 16-year-old boy believed to be the gunman, in the stray-bullet shooting of a bright-eyed Bronx girl.

The arrests early Wednesday bring to five the number of suspects held in the senseless shooting that began with a jailhouse beatdown. Each of the suspects - they're all from the Bronx - has been charged with attempted murder, assault and criminal use of a firearm.

Police identified the suspected shooter as Carvette Gentile, 16. Also in custody at the 42nd Precinct stationhouse in Morrisania were Rohan Franis, 18; Cleve Smith, 20; Clivie Smith, 19; and Dwayne Taylor, 23.

Vada Vasquez, 15, was still in critical condition at Lincoln Hospital. Before heading to the hospital, the girl's sister celebrated the arrest.

"They got him!" Mandy Boodram, 33, hollered. "They got the shooter! Oh my God, they got him!"

Boodram looked down at the front page of the Daily News and was brought to tears by the sight of her little sister's face.

"That's our beautiful girl," Boodram said before calling her mother to tell her about the new arrests. "She's so pretty and strong. Look at her. She's going to make it. I just know it." Investigators on Tuesday said the shooting started with a brawl on Rikers Island that had nothing to do with girl.

"We believe the shooting was retaliation to a beating that was given by someone who is in Rikers," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. "There's still way too many guns on the street. It underscores the glaring lack of a national gun control policy."

Vada and a friend were on their way home Monday from her school, Bronx Latin...Full Story