Police: Ricochet shoots teacher in the hand as it flies through classroom window

A New York teacher was hit by a ricochet bullet while setting up his classroom on the eve of the first day of school, police said.

The bullet flew through the window of the sixth-floor classroom and hit the 33-year-old teacher in the right hand, police said.

According to the New York Department of Education, the incident occurred shortly before noon on Wednesday at a middle school in the Bronx.

The bullet was probably fired from an elevated area far away from the school (MS 391), police said.

“The school was not the target,” Deputy Chief Keiyon Ramsey of the NYPD's Bronx Patrol Borough told reporters during a press conference Wednesday.

The teacher suffered a graze on his right palm, Ramsey said. He was in stable condition and taken to a local hospital, where he has since been released.

A fired bullet was recovered from the classroom and is currently being examined, Ramsey said.

According to Deputy Police Chief Louis Deceglie, commanding officer of the NYPD's Bronx Detective Bureau, police are trying to determine where the bullet came from and who fired it.

“We are currently searching all the roofs in the area looking for both ballistic evidence and video evidence,” Deceglie told reporters during Wednesday's press conference.

There were no students in the classroom at the time of the shooting because classes do not begin until Thursday. In addition, no students were in the school at the time, Ramsey said.

“This egregious display of force is both shocking and reprehensible,” the Energy Department said in a statement. “The NYPD was immediately on the scene, where a teacher sustained non-life-threatening injuries. We will be providing additional support to this school community.”

“Out of an abundance of caution,” additional school security and police officers will be present at the middle school on the first day of school Thursday, Ramsey said.