New York — A 7-month-old baby in a stroller was killed by a stray bullet Wednesday afternoon when a man on a motorcycle opened fire on a group of people on a sidewalk in Brooklyn, authorities said.
Police said the shooting was believed to be gang-related and that the child was an unintended victim.
“There are no words that can address the grief this family is feeling right now,” the city’s mayor, Zahran Mamdani, told reporters at a news conference near where the shooting occurred. “A life that had barely begun was taken away in an instant.”
The shooting occurred around 1:20 p.m. after two men sped down the street on a motorcycle and the man in the back of the vehicle fired at least two shots at a street corner where several adults and children were gathered. Police did not report any other injuries as a result of the shooting.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the bike sped off, but collided with an oncoming car two blocks away. She said the collision caused the two men to eject from the car with such force that the cyclist lost his shoe.
One of the men on the bike was injured in the crash and taken to hospital, where he was in police custody in connection with an unrelated investigation, police said. The other man fled and police were still searching for him Wednesday afternoon.
Police investigators used neighborhood surveillance cameras to track where the bike had traveled in the minutes after the shooting, Tesch said.
“This is a terrible day in our city, a tragedy that has truly shocked the conscience,” she said at the press conference. “As a mother, I cannot imagine the pain this family is feeling or the grief they are carrying with them right now. It is indescribable.”
The child’s death comes amid a continuing period of declining crime in New York City. As of Sunday, the NYPD had recorded 52 homicides so far in 2026, down 29% from the same period last year. The city is on track to end the first quarter with homicides and shootings near their lowest levels in decades.
Mamdani said the killing is a reminder that there is still a lot of work to be done to reduce gun violence.