7-month-old dead after being struck in the head by stray bullet during broad-daylight NYC shooting: cops
7-month-old dead after being struck in the head by stray bullet during broad-daylight NYC shooting: cops
A 7-month-old girl was shot dead in her stroller by a stray bullet while walking with her parents in Brooklyn, with cops now looking for a pair of moped-riding thugs, police and sources said.
The family was strolling near Humboldt and Moore streets early in the afternoon when the shots rang out, and the two suspected gunmen sped off — with a person of interest now in custody and a massive manhunt for the second suspect underway, the sources said.
Sources said the tot’s mom heard the shots and rushed her daughter into a nearby bodega for shelter — then looked down at the stroller and saw the blood.
The suspects fled but crashed the moped two blocks away, sending one of them to the hospital where he was identified as a person of interest and the second goon still on the run.
Meanwhile, the tragic youngster was rushed by ambulance to Woodhull Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 1:46 p.m.
“I was in the supermarket and coming out with my sandwich. I heard a commotion and a shot. Once you hear shots in the air, you duck. I saw a girl on the floor with her baby,” said Vincent Valcissel, 63.
“It happened so fast like a movie.”
A witness who identified herself as Ms. Jones described the heart-rending scene as the tragic tot was brought into the hospital.
“I heard someone say, ‘My baby, my baby.’ She was just like ‘Save my baby, save my baby,” Jones said. “She was trying to tell her baby to wake up, telling the baby to wake up.”
“The police started coming in. There was so much chaos. I heard the beep. Once I heard the beep, I knew it was flatlining and the baby was gone,” the witness added.
“They came and told the mother and she went crazy. She lost it. Then the last thing I heard her say was, ‘No, no, no!’ She was just screaming out, ‘No. I can’t believe this.”
Police found the moped a mile away and launched a manhunt for the suspects, with cops now questioning a person of interest who was nabbed on Nostrand Avenue and taken to the hospital.
He has not been charged.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani denounced the tragic shooting while at an unrelated press conference.
“It is a tragedy that this baby was shot and killed, and soon after this press conference I’ll be joining our police commissioner to brief the media and the public,” the mayor said. “Our hearts break for this family.”
According to sources, the girl was not the intended target, but it is not immediately clear if the killers were aiming for her parents or other bystanders at the scene.
Chilling surveillance photos show the shooter firing from the back of the moped while the driver speeds away.
The driver of the moped was described as a man with long hair wearing a light-colored hooded sweatshirt, while the shooter was wearing a dark colored hoodie, the sources said.
“It’s disgusting. It’s disgusting. This is what these people get voting blue. If the National Guard was out here, this wouldn’t have happened,” Valcissel said.
The shooting, described as gang-related, took place around 1:20 p.m. at Humboldt and Moore streets in Williamsburg, when the gunmen pulled up on a moped and opened fire into a crowd of children and adults before speeding off, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press briefing.
Tisch said the suspects crashed the moped into an oncoming car two blocks away, with the passenger thrown to the pavement so hard that his shoes flew off his feet.
He was rushed to Brooklyn Hospital, where he has been identified as a person of interest in the shooting and is being questioned in an unrelated domestic incident — while the second perp is on the loose.
“Right now, he is the subject of a massive NYPD manhunt” that includes “NYPD bloodhounds [that] are currently working to track his movements.”
Additional reporting by Matthew Fischetti
