The alleged getaway driver sought in the fatal shooting of a 7-month-old girl killed during a botched gang hit in Brooklyn was captured in Pennsylvania on Friday, according to law enforcement sources.
Matthew Rodriguez, 18, operated the scooter that carried alleged gunman Amuri Greene, who was targeting a rival over some gang-related beef when he inadvertently struck little Kaori Patterson-Moore in the head on Wednesday, sources said.
Greene was charged with murder, attempted murder and assault, cops said Friday.
Charges against Rodriguez remained pending on Friday.
The driver and his accomplice made a clumsy getaway that resulted in their scooter crashing about three blocks from the scene, cops said. The pair were hurled from the scooter and Greene, who was injured in the crash, was taken into custody after medics brought him to Brooklyn Hospital Center, where he remained Friday.
The scooter’s driver, who managed to evade police after the crash, was identified as Rodriguez by detectives on Thursday, according to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
The 7-month-old girl was sitting in a stroller when she was fatally shot near Humboldt and Moore Sts. in East Williamsburg. Police are investigating whether Kaori’s father, who has links to members of the Money Over Everything gang in the Bushwick Houses, was the suspects’ 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.
“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, quickly dismissed the idea that gang members had been 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, who were in a double stroller, to grab baby supplies when the gunfire erupted around 1:20 p.m.
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,” Moore said. “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 older brother, grazing his back after it passed through his sister’s head.
“They could have killed my son and my daughter,” said Moore.
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 Chief Kenny.
Both men were thrown from the scooter, with Greene 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 car 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 for a domestic-violence-related robbery, according to Tisch.