A 7-month-old girl in a stroller was killed by a stray bullet from a botched gang hit in Brooklyn Wednesday — with the panicked father rushing his child in vain to a local hospital as the gunman fled on a scooter, police said.
Kaori Patterson-Moore was struck in the head by the stray bullet as her mom pushed her in a stroller near Humboldt and Moore Sts. in East Williamsburg at about 1:20 p.m., cops said.
“We are devastated,” said little Kaori’s distraught grandmother, who lives across the street from the shooting scene and gave her name only as Arlene.
The infant girl’s stroller was beside another baby stroller and several other children and adults when she was shot, according to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
The shooter was riding behind an accomplice together on a scooter when he drew his gun, startling surveillance footage released by the NYPD shows. Cops took a 21-year-old person of interest into custody later in the afternoon, NYPD sources said.
The startled 20-year-old mom ran into a nearby bodega with Kaori still with her in the stroller, police sources said.
Once inside, she looked down and saw her daughter was bloodied.
Kaori’s father raced her to Woodhull Hospital about seven blocks away — dropping the little girl’s blood-soaked pink bonnet in the street along the way — but she could not be saved.
“There are no words that can mend the heartbreak this family is feeling,” Mayor Mamdani said at a press conference at the scene. “A life that had barely begun was taken in an instant.”
Vincent Valcassel, 63, who has lived in the neighborhood his entire life, was coming out of a nearby supermarket when he heard the gunfire.
“I ducked immediately,” he said. “There was chaos, people screaming and running. A woman and a baby were on the floor.”
“I heard a single gunshot,” he added. “From what I’ve heard, the woman wasn’t the intended target. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She got in the way.”
The shooter and his accomplice sped off on the scooter they were sharing north on Humboldt St., took a left on Siegel St. and then crashed at Manhattan Ave. three blocks from the scene, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
Both men were thrown from the scooter, with the rear passenger hitting the pavement so hard that he lost both shoes, Tisch said.
Video posted online shows the suspects’ scooter slamming into the front end of a sedan as they travel against traffic. The impact sends both men hurling to the pavement, and the shoeless rear passenger can be seen hobbling on one foot afterward, the footage shows.
The video ends as the driver retrieves what appears to be a firearm from the street, before both men climb back onto the scooter and ride off-screen.
EMS alerted by a 911 call placed after the crash brought the injured rear passenger to Brooklyn Hospital Center, where he was taken into police custody for a domestic-violence-related robbery, according to Tisch.
He was wearing the same clothing as the baby’s caught-on-video shooter, Tisch said.
Charges against him related to the shooting were not immediately filed, and his name was not released. He is a known gang associate from NYCHA’s Marcy Houses, police said.
His accomplice, who was operating the scooter, fled toward the Marcy Houses and is now the subject of a massive NYPD manhunt, Tisch said.
The NYPD released a surveillance image of the accomplice Wednesday evening and asked the public’s help identifying him and tracking him down.
Tisch said the shooting is believed to be gang-related and the baby was an unintended target.
Little Kaori’s tragic death occurred about two weeks after her father proposed to her mother, a neighbor told the Daily News.
“They just got engaged,” said Denee Phillips, 57, who lives across the hall from Kaori’s mother’s apartment in Clinton Hill. “He wanted to do the right thing.”
Phillips said Kaori comes from a good family. Her grandparents on her mother’s side are church pastors, while her mother and father both work to support their family, which also includes their 2-year-old son.
“[The baby’s mother] is a quiet good girl,” the neighbor said. “She and her baby’s father take good care of their kids.”
Anyone with information on the shooting or the sought accomplice is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
With Cayla Bamberger and Nicholas Williams
