A seven-month-old baby was killed Wednesday afternoon when a stray bullet struck their stroller during a shooting on a Brooklyn sidewalk, authorities said.
Police believe the incident, carried out by a man on a moped targeting a group of people, was gang-related and that the child was an unintended victim.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani expressed his grief near the scene, saying: “There are no words that can mend the heartbreak this family is feeling right now. A life that had barely begun was taken in an instant.”
The shooting occurred around 1:20 p.m. after two men rode down the street on a moped, with the passenger firing at least two shots at a street corner where adults and children were gathered. No other injuries were reported.
The moped sped off, but crashed into an oncoming car two blocks away, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. The impact threw both men off the vehicle so hard that the moped’s passenger lost both his shoes, she said.
One of the men on the moped was hurt in the crash and brought to a hospital, where he was in police custody in connection with an unrelated investigation, police said. The other man fled and was still being sought by police on Wednesday afternoon.
Police investigators used neighborhood security cameras to track where the moped traveled in the minutes after the shooting, Tisch said.
“This is a terrible day in our city, a tragedy that truly shocks the conscience,” she said at the news briefing. “As a mother, I cannot imagine the pain that this family is feeling or the grief that they now carry with them. It is unspeakable.”
The child’s death comes amid a sustained period of dropping crime in New York City. Through Sunday, the NYPD had recorded 52 killings so far in 2026, down 29 percent from the same period last year. The city is on track to finish the first quarter with killings and shootings near their lowest in decades.
Mamdani said the killing is a reminder that much work still needs to be done to reduce gun violence.
