A man was in police custody on Wednesday in the killing of an infant who was struck by a stray bullet hours earlier in Brooklyn, police officials said.
The suspect was riding on the back of a motorbike in the Williamsburg neighborhood when he fired his gun, Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said at a news conference late Wednesday afternoon. The infant, a 7-month-old girl, was in a stroller and with her parents when she was shot.
Officers are still searching for a second man who was driving the motorbike, Ms. Tisch said.
The events, captured by a security camera, unfolded around 1:15 p.m. as the men were speeding the wrong way on Humboldt Street, the police said.
As the motorbike approached the corner of Humboldt and Moore Streets, the passenger pulled out a gun and fired at a group of several adults and children outside the Sem Sem Deli, Ms. Tisch said. The moped sped off and crashed into an oncoming car.
Joseph E. Kenny, the chief of detectives at the Police Department, said the baby’s father rushed her to Woodhull Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The police on Wednesday evening identified the child as Kaori Patterson-Moore of Clinton Hill, a Brooklyn neighborhood about two miles from where she was killed.
It was unclear what led to the shooting and who was the intended target. Officials did not release the name of the suspect, who had not been formally arrested or charged by Wednesday evening.
“As a mother,” Ms. Tisch said, “I cannot imagine the pain.”
Among shootings in New York City in which a person is struck by a stray bullet, babies are rarely the victims. In 2022, an 11-month-old girl, Catherine Arias, was shot in the head when she was caught in the crossfire outside a pharmacy in the Bronx.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who also spoke at the news conference on Wednesday, called the killing “a devastating reminder of how much more work has to be done to combat gun violence across this city.”
“We cannot accept this as normal in our city,” he said. “We cannot be numb to this pain.”
By late afternoon, two helicopters whirred overhead as dozens of police officers scanned the sidewalk for evidence in front of the deli on Humboldt Street.
Nearby, Vincent Valcassel said he was walking out of Bravo Supermarket around 1 p.m. when he heard two men arguing in front of the deli. At least one of the two men appeared to be on a bike, he said.
“All of a sudden I heard a shot — real loud,” said Mr. Valcassel, 63, a lifelong resident of Williamsburg. The sound of the gunfire sent people running for cover, he said.
Mr. Valcassel said he had then seen the child on the pavement. “The mother’s screaming, ‘Baby, baby, baby! The baby’s shot!’” he said.
Bernius Maldonado, 31, said she had gone to the Moore Street Market with her partner, Joshua Rodriguez, 33, to buy fish fritters for lunch on Wednesday afternoon. She was leaving the store when she heard at least two snaps and felt pain on her legs. At first she thought someone had thrown firecrackers.
“It was burning my legs; I didn’t know what hit me,” Ms. Maldonado said, showing bloody marks on the back of her calf where Mr. Rodriguez said he had extracted bits of metal.
She realized what had happened when she heard a woman scream.
As the baby’s mother collapsed beside the stroller after the shooting, Ms. Maldonado said, the father picked up the baby, but “she was lifeless.” The shocked father appeared to be about to lay the baby back in the stroller when Ms. Maldonado shouted at him to rush her to the hospital.
“He grabbed the baby, he just ran,” she said.
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
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