Shooting in NYC leaves 7-month-old girl dead as family speak out
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/CBS New York
Warning: This article contains discussion of baby loss which some readers may find distressing.
A baby was fatally shot on Wednesday in what's believed to have been gang-related incident in New York City.
Yesterday (April 1), Lianna Charles-Moore was pushing her young daughter, Kaori, in her stroller around Brooklyn, New York, when a man on a moped shot at a group of people. As well as being with her baby daughter, Lianna had her two-year-old son with her at the time of the scary ordeal.
While it isn't believed the gunman was aiming at the mother and her kids, a stray bullet hit Kaori in the head, killing the seven-month-old girl.
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Reportedly her two year old son's back was also grazed by a bullet.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has addressed the heartbreaking incident.
"There are no words that can mend the heartbreak this family is feeling right now," he said, per CNN. "A life that had barely begun was taken in an instant."
Lianne herself has spoken out following the daughter's devastating death and said that her baby girl didn't deserve what happened to her.
"My daughter was innocent," the 20-year-old mom said to the New York Post in a phone interview.
"She didn’t deserve that. We were just going outside to go get her a few things, and my son a few things.
"My son got impacted with everything that happened, yeah, so it was just too much, because they could have killed my son and my daughter."
She went on to say that Kaori had just learnt to say 'mama' and was almost crawling.
Linda Moore Oyinkoinyan, Lianna's mom, recalled the moment she received the call about her granddaughter's passing.
She said: "My daughter called me at my job. She was screaming. I had to hang up on her. She was scaring me.
"She said, 'They shot Kaori in the head.' She was screaming. She was frantic. I just passed out in the class."
Linda went on to describe Kaori as 'loving', 'caring', and 'always smiling', adding: "The baby was very beautiful. She brought a lot of people together."
Police have launched an investigation into yesterday's events. There were two men on the moped, one of which suffered injuries after crashing the bike two blocks away from the shooting.
The man was taken Brooklyn Hospital, where he was identified as a person of interest in the shooting.
Meanwhile New York Police Department are carrying out a manhunt for the second perpetrator.
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact The Compassionate Friends on (877) 969-0010.