On Wednesday night on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a 20-year-old woman pushing a baby in a stroller was fatally shot in the head at close range.
According to a senior law enforcement official, investigators believe the victim and the shooter were acquainted and have identified a person of interest. According to investigators, the 3-month-old baby was uninjured.
Law enforcement officials told CNN that the woman was believed to be the child’s mother and that she was temporarily living in a women’s shelter a few blocks away.
The incident occurred around 8:20 p.m. when the attacker approached the woman while pushing the stroller and shot her once in the head close to the junction of East 95th Street and Lexington Avenue.
According to police, the shooter fled on foot along 95th Street, and he was described as a male wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black trousers.
“A woman is pushing a baby carriage down the block and is shot in point-blank range. It shows just how this national problem is impacting families,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams, eventually referring to “the oversaturation of guns and dangerous people that repeatedly leave our criminal justice system.”
“It doesn’t matter if you are on the Upper East Side or East New York, Brooklyn,” he said.
Officials say that a domestic incident report on which the woman’s name appears, along with those listed as former boyfriends and a second child not present at the time, allowed investigators to learn the child’s age and details about the woman.
Her name has not been released publicly as of yet.
An autopsy will determine the precise cause of death, but a preliminary investigation determined the woman was shot in the right temple by a bullet recovered from a nearby parked car, the official said.
