Officials say a 7-month-old girl was an unintended victim in what investigators believe was a gang-related shooting in East Williamsburg.
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Detectives in Brooklyn were piecing together security video, witness accounts and crash evidence Thursday after a 7-month-old girl was killed in a shooting that police say began at a street corner and ended with a moped slamming into a car two blocks away.
The investigation has quickly become one of the city’s most closely watched cases because the victim was an infant in a stroller and because police say the gunfire was aimed elsewhere. One man is in custody on an unrelated matter, another is being hunted across the city, and investigators still have not publicly identified who the shooters meant to hit or why that corner was targeted.
According to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, the violence began around 1:20 p.m. Wednesday near Humboldt and Moore streets in East Williamsburg. Video from the block showed two men riding toward the intersection on a moped. The man on the back then pulled a gun and fired at least two rounds toward a group standing on the sidewalk, Tisch said. That group included adults, several children and two strollers. In the confusion, the infant’s family ran into a nearby bodega. Workers there said the mother discovered the baby was bleeding only after they had taken cover inside. The girl was rushed by her father to Woodhull Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Officials later identified the child as 7-month-old Kaori Patterson-Moore.
Police said the shooters did not stop. Surveillance footage showed the moped continue north on Humboldt Street and travel against traffic before crashing into an oncoming vehicle near Manhattan Avenue and Siegel Street. Both riders were thrown off. Tisch said the rear passenger, believed to fit the description of the shooter, hit the pavement so hard that both of his shoes came off. A 911 call about the crash came in at about 1:25 p.m., according to local reporting from the scene. Emergency crews took the injured rear passenger to Brooklyn Hospital, where officers later placed the 21-year-old in custody in connection with an unrelated domestic violence related robbery case. Detectives said they were still working to determine whether he was the gunman seen firing from the moped.
Even with one man in custody, major questions remained unanswered Thursday. Police said they believed the attack was gang-motivated and described the detained man as a gang associate from the Marcy Houses, but officials have not publicly named an intended target, a specific group in conflict or the origin of the gun used in the shooting. No firearm had been recovered by late Wednesday, according to the police briefing reported by multiple outlets. The second suspect was described by authorities as a young man wearing light gray pants, a white T-shirt and a black surgical mask over part of his face. He was last seen running toward the Marcy Houses. Tisch said officers citywide had been given his image and that bloodhounds were being used to help track his path.
Witness accounts added sharp detail to the timeline. Deli worker Abdul Alzokari said the mother broke down when she looked into the stroller and saw the child bleeding. Bernius Maldonado, who was nearby, said he initially mistook the shots for fireworks until he felt fragments strike his leg. Domingo Bonilla, another nearby worker, said the crash of the fleeing moped into a car sounded like an explosion. Those accounts matched the broad outline laid out by investigators, who said the shooting happened in seconds on a block where children and parents were outside in daylight. City Councilmember Jennifer Gutiérrez, whose district includes the area, said her heart was broken. Gov. Kathy Hochul called the death a horrific reminder of the need to keep pressing against gun violence.
The wider context made the killing stand out even more. New York City had entered April with homicide and shooting counts running below last year’s pace, and officials had recently pointed to the first quarter as one of the safer periods in decades by that measure. Through Sunday, according to the NYPD figures cited by city leaders, the city had recorded 52 killings in 2026, down 29% from the same point in 2025. Still, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the infant’s death showed how quickly a single act of gunfire can erase any comfort provided by statistics. At a briefing near the scene, he said a life that had barely begun was taken in an instant and described the shooting as a reminder of the work still left to do.
As the investigation moved forward Thursday, detectives were expected to keep reviewing neighborhood camera footage, forensic evidence from the shell casings and the recovered moped, and medical and clothing evidence connected to the hospitalized suspect. Police had not yet announced charges directly tied to the child’s death, and they had not said when a further public briefing might come. For now, the case stands at an in-between stage: one suspect in custody, one still missing, a grieving family at the center, and a city waiting to see whether detectives can turn a fast-moving street crime into a completed homicide case.
Author note: Last updated April 2, 2026.