Authorities say a young mother walking with her baby in New York was killed after a gunman attacked her from behind.
At about 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, near Lexington and East 95th Street, a masked gunman approached a 20-year-old woman pushing her one-month-old baby in a stroller from behind, then fired a single fatal shot in the back. From her head, says the police.
The horrific murder came just days after the Supreme Court struck down a New York law requiring people to demonstrate a special need to carry a gun in order to obtain a license to carry it in public. The judges said the requirement violated the Second Amendment’s right to “keep and bear arms.”
During a news conference following the horrific murder, New York City Police Commissioner Kishant Sewell said the victim was rushed to Metropolitan Hospital in critical condition. He added that her death was announced about an hour after her arrival, without identifying the victim.
Officials said the child, who was in the stroller at the time of the attack, was unharmed.
The suspect is still at large and is described as wearing all-black clothes and a hooded sweatshirt. There was no word on a possible motive.
The brazen murder took place in one of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods and only blocks from the stadium, where children who were reportedly playing heard a loud “bang” only later treated to a gunshot wound when they saw the horrific scene that had taken place, according to the DailyMail.com.
“I was confused, because I thought these might have been fireworks. But then I realized no, this is dangerous and there was a gunshot,” said a 10-year-old girl in the area Mail.
Later in the evening, New York City Mayor Eric Adams attended a news conference at the scene of the violent crime and blamed the staggering murder on the “problem of the excessive prevalence of guns on our streets.”
“When a woman pushes a stroller down the block, and is shot at point blank range, it shows how this national problem affects families,” Mr Adams said. CBS News. “It doesn’t matter if you’re on the Upper East Side, or eastern New York, Brooklyn. Oversaturation of guns puts people at risk.”
On Thursday, in a 6-3, Supreme Court justices ruled that a New York law requiring people seeking to carry a concealed weapon to obtain a permit, considered one of the most restrictive laws in the country, is unconstitutional.
The decision is expected to eventually allow more people to legally carry guns on the streets of the country’s largest cities – including New York, Los Angeles and Boston – and elsewhere, with about a quarter of the US population living in states expected to be affected. The ruling, the first major decision of the Supreme Court in more than a decade.
Just hours before the deadly shooting in the city, the state’s governor announced a new measure being finalized with legislative leaders that will ban people from carrying firearms in many workplaces unless owners put up a sign saying guns are welcome.
Geoff Kathy Hochul said lawmakers approved the broad strikes on a gun control bill that is due to pass the Democratic-led legislature on Thursday.
Wednesday’s killing followed a recent series of apparently indiscriminate shootings on the streets and on the subway, according to Reuters.
The city’s shooting rates have not yet fallen back to pre-pandemic levels. For example, as of Sunday, there were 624 shootings in the city since the beginning of the year, which when compared to the same time period in 2021, represents a 12 percent decrease. But when you look back and compare that rate to the same time period in 2019, it actually represents a 28 percent increase, according to The New York Times.
Files from The Associated Press
