A 21-year-old man faces murder charges after a seven-month-old baby girl was fatally shot in the head whilst sitting in her pram during what investigators believe was a botched gang-related attack in Brooklyn.
Amuri Greene, understood to be a known associate of a street gang operating from a New York public housing project, is expected to be charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder following Wednesday afternoon’s shooting that claimed Kaori Patterson-Moore’s life.
The infant was with her parents and two-year-old brother on the corner of Humboldt and Moore Streets in the Williamsburg neighbourhood when two men on a moped travelling the wrong way down a one-way street opened fire shortly after 1pm ET, discharging at least two rounds into the crowd.
Surveillance footage captured the passenger on the vehicle’s rear unleashing gunfire before the moped crashed into a car, throwing both occupants from the bike. Greene sustained a broken leg requiring surgery at Brooklyn Hospital before being taken into police custody initially in connection with an unrelated domestic violence robbery matter.
The moped’s driver remains at large, though authorities confirm his identity is known to investigators.
As shots rang out, Kaori’s parents grabbed their children and fled into a nearby shop, where mother Lianna Charles-Moore realised amid the chaos that her infant daughter had been struck in the head. The baby’s two-year-old brother, also in the pram, was grazed on the back but survived.
Kaori was rushed to Woodhull Hospital where she was pronounced dead, devastating a family who had been celebrating the infant’s first tentative steps.
Ms Charles-Moore told CBS: “She’s gone, and I can’t ever see her again. I can’t smell her, can’t kiss her. I can’t wake up and feed her her bottle. Everything I wanted to with her, I can’t do with her anymore.”
Grandmother Linda Oyinkoinyan described Kaori as “my little baby angel,” whilst grandfather GodsKing Oyinkoinyan recounted visiting the hospital to see his grandchild one final time, stating: “That was really, really heartbreaking.”
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani mourned alongside the family, declaring: “A life that had barely begun was taken in an instant. Every single child in this city deserves to grow up free from the threat of gun violence.”
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch described the shooting as “devastating,” adding: “As a mother, I cannot imagine the pain that this family is feeling or the grief that they now carry with them. It is unspeakable.”
Civil rights leader Reverend Kevin McCall and local clergy announced a $5,000 reward on Thursday for information leading to arrest of the outstanding suspect, whilst Brooklyn residents have left flowers outside the family’s Bushwick home calling for peace.
Investigators are examining whether Kaori’s father may have been the intended target of the gang attack.
