Cops have opened a manhunt to find the merciless gunman who shot a mom in the back of the head at point-blank range as she crossed a street on the Upper East Side of New York City opposite a busy playground.
The young mom, 20, was pushing a baby stroller containing her 3-month-old child across the street at around 8:23pm on Wednesday evening when a hooded assassin approached her from behind and shot her in the head.
The baby was not injured but the mother reportedly died at the scene. The gunman, who was wearing a black hoodie and sweatpants, successfully fled on foot and police have not yet been able to catch him.
Shaken children who were playing in the park across the street witnessed the killing. A ten-year-old girl told the MailOnline she heard “an extremely loud boom” and saw the young woman fall to the floor.
“I was really confused, because I thought maybe this was fireworks. But then I realized that no, this is serious and that there was a gunshot,” said the girl.
“And it really frightened me because I was right there at the park playing and I never would have ever thought that would happen.
“I saw a lot of people running, and I saw a woman down there, she fell,” she explained.
"*" indicates required fields
“I was worried but then I wanted to stay calm, because I didn’t want any interaction, and I didn’t want anything else to happen.”
Upper East Side is an affluent area of Manhattan with average house prices standing at a cool $1.5 million. There were no eye witnesses who reported the assassin robbing the women, and police suspect the gunman may have been a disgruntled boyfriend of the victim’s.
Dem NY mayor Eric Adams was quick to use the incident to attack gun-ownership, suggesting the city’s “over-proliferation of guns” has led to the out-of-control crime stats in New York under his watch:
“More guns in our city means more lives lost,” he said.
“It means more babies crying, as those who love them lie dead.”
It comes just days after Joe Biden’s new gun legislation was made into law after the massacre at Uvalde primary school where 17 children and 2 teachers were gunned down.
“From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, arkland, El Paso, Atlanta, Buffalo, Uvalde, and for the shootings that happen every day in the streets that are mass shootings, we don’t even hear about the number of people killed every day in the streets. Their message to us was to just do something,” said Biden.
New York City already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. There are numerous laws about open-carrying handguns and gun-owners are required to apply for a permit to prove it is necessary for them to carry a concealed handgun in public.
Residence must have a valid permit to purchase and own a weapon, although it seems unlikely the shooter in this case would have had a permit to carry his gun.
NYPD data shows that major crime in NY is up by 44 percent this year compared to 2021, but murders are slightly down by 13 percent, and shootings by 9 percent – stats which Adams says is down to there being less illegal weapons on the streets.