Irvington father speaks out about baby's death by stray bullet, homelessness

IRVINGTON, N.J. (WABC) -- A family in Irvington, New Jersey says not only was their baby's life taken by a stray bullet, but they've also been living out of their car after not wanting to return to where their daughter died.

You can still see the hole where a stray bullet went through the wall of a home, killing an infant.

Now for the first time, the baby's father is opening up about the trauma and how it turned his life upside down for the last nine months while the killers walk free.

"I've been upset, I've been in a rage," said Aquil Cunningham-Camacho, the victim's father.

It was only Cunningham-Camacho's second day living at the apartment in Irvington last October, when he and his wife witnessed something no parent should see.

"I see my daughter flying off the bed. She was jumping on the bed, I thought maybe she just fell of the bed, when I pick her up there's blood coming out of her side," Cunningham-Camacho said.

A stray bullet, police say, from three masked men who were randomly shooting on the street, went through their wall killing 15-month-old Sanai as her parents played with her on the bed.

"Everywhere I went, she went. She brightened up everything. I don't even have emotions anymore," Cunningham-Camacho said.

The death of Sanai was painful enough, but returning to their apartment where they watched her suffer was too much to bear. Plus, they feared the shooters could return.

The family tells Eyewitness News they were promised help from several agencies to find a new place to live.

"The prosecutor, they put us in a hotel for a week, they said, 'Oh we can't keep funding you all,'" Cunningham-Camacho said.

The Prosecutor's Office couldn't discuss the case directly, but told Eyewitness News, "Often families have needs that go beyond our services. When that occurs we link them to Social Services and other agencies better equipped to respond to them."

Cunningham-Camacho says he tried other agencies but nothing worked out.

"We were homeless. We were staying in our car," Cunningham-Camacho said.

But even more important than a place to live, he wants justice, because as his family's life deteriorated for the last nine months, the killers still walked free.

"I'm going to get buried in jail for trying to avenge my daughter," Cunningham-Camacho said.