Hempstead teen killed in shooting

Nassau County police are currently investigating a fatal shooting in Hempstead that left a teenager dead late Wednesday night.

Though police officials have yet to identify the body of the “male victim,” the victim’s mother and grandmother said that it is Dante James Quinones-Wright, 17, a Hempstead resident and former Malverne High School student.

Police reported that officers found the victim lying on Dartmouth St. — sustaining three gunshot wounds in the heart, stomach and groin — just after the shooting at around 9:56 p.m on Sept. 11.

Chrissie Quinones, 34, the victim’s mother, said that her son was hanging with friends that night before she arrived on the scene five minutes before the ambulance.

Quinones-Wright was then taken to Winthrop-University Hospital, according to Quinones, where doctors operated on him for 30 minutes before pronouncing him dead.

Quinones — who is separated from Dante’s father while he is serving time in federal prison on drug charges — said her son started hanging with “the wrong kids” when he was 14, around the time that his father went to jail. She said that her son recently started fearing for his life after falling out with one of his friends a few weeks ago.

In the past few years, Quinones-Wright has been charged in the juvenile court system with criminal mischief and put on probation, his mother said, but was sentenced to juvenile detention when he violated probation in late 2011 and spent 10 months at a facility in Poughkeepsie, NY. While her son kept getting into trouble back home, Quinones said that she transferred him from Hempstead High to Malverne High School in his sophomore year to help him improve.

Malverne School District Superintendent Dr. James Hunderfund said in a statement that Quinones-Wright attended the district in the 2011-12 academic year.

"It’s a very tragic occurrence that any young person would be taken away from us so suddenly and under those circumstances," Hunderfund told the Herald. "Everyone is in mourning at this time and we extend our condolences to the family, friends and community."