The NYPD dropped a dragnet across the city as they searched Friday for the second suspect in the brazen daylight shooting that left a 7-month-old girl dead from a stray bullet as detectives officially charged the triggerman with murder, officials said.
Armed with surveillance photos of the man driving the moped during Wednesday’s drive-by shooting, cops continued the manhunt Friday.
At the same time, Amuri Greene, the gunman, was officially charged with murder, attempted murder, and assault as he recovers at a Brooklyn hospital, cops said Friday.
The charges were handed down a short time after Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Greene would be charged in the death of little Kaori Patterson-Moore.
Kaori and her 3-year-old brother were in a double stroller being pushed by their mother when a gunman fired from the back of a scooter at Humboldt and Moore Sts. in East Williamsburg around 1:20 p.m. Wednesday, cops said
Greene was targeting a rival over a gang-related beef when he inadvertently struck the little girl, according to police sources. Police are investigating whether Kaori’s father was the intended target, NYPD officials said.
The driver and his accomplice then mounted a clumsy getaway that resulted in their scooter crashing about three blocks from the scene, cops said.
Greene, who was injured after he was hurled from the scooter, was taken into custody after medics brought him to Brooklyn Hospital Center, where he remained Friday. The moped driver managed to evade police following the crash and remained at large.
Greene’s arraignment was pending Friday.
Police are trying to determine if Kaori’s father, who has links to members of the Money Over Everything gang in the Bushwick Houses, was Greene’s intended target, NYPD officials said. The gang, known as MOE, is in the middle of an ongoing dispute with a crew Greene is associated with from the Marcy Houses, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Thursday.
“We’re still looking into that. We know that he (Kaori’s dad) does have an association with some other (Money Over Everything) gang members,” Kenny said. “He is not in our criminal group database as an MOE member but based on the geography and where he was at the time, we are looking into that.”
When reached Wednesday, Kaori’s mother, Lianna Moore, dismissed the idea that gang members were out to kill her fiancé.
“That’s not right,” Moore, 20, told the Daily News when reached at her home Thursday. “We haven’t been outside. We haven’t been anywhere. We’ve been inside the house. We haven’t been doing anything.”
Kaori’s father declined to speak Thursday.
Moore and her fiancé were taking their two young children to grab baby supplies when the gunfire erupted.
Mistaking the gunfire for fireworks, Moore rushed her frightened children into a nearby shop, where she noticed something was wrong with her little girl.
“My daughter was just there, laying there,” said Moore. “She was shot in the head. She was just bleeding. It was just too much.”
The baby’s father grabbed his little girl and raced her to Woodhull Hospital about seven blocks away, where she died.
The bullet that killed Kaori also wounded her brother, grazing his back after it passed through his sister’s head.
“They could have killed my son and my daughter,” said Moore.
A woman was also shot in the leg during the attack, cops said.
Greene was riding behind his accomplice when he drew his gun, startling surveillance footage released by the NYPD shows.
After firing off a few rounds, the pair fled 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 Greene hitting the pavement so hard that he lost both shoes, cops.
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 video ends as the scooter’s operator 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 Greene to Brooklyn Hospital Center, where he was first taken into police custody.