Young mother among 3 killed during bloody night in NYC; 10 shot
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- It was a bloody night in New York City overnight Thursday as 10 people were shot, including a young mother gunned down in front of her brother.
The shootings began around 9:30 p.m., and in a particularly violent half-hour, three people were killed.
The corner of East 194th Street and Marion Avenue in the Fordham section of the Bronx is still taped off Thursday, after 29-year-old Katherine Diop was fatally wounded just before 11:30 p.m.
"She was an amazing person," friend Jay Massiah said. "She would always make you laugh, smile."
Neighbor Camille Miguel is a good friend of Diop's and was with her moments before she was shot.
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She said they were having a cookout on the front patio when Diop went across the street to get more lighter fluid from the deli.
She got into a fight with someone, and as she and her brother were walking away, gunshots rang out.
"The next thing I know, they were fighting," Miguel said. "I went into the house and got my phone and called 911. When I came out, I heard pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, at least seven times. She was walking, then she looked back and she just dropped."
Diop was shot in the torso, and Miguel said she took a few breaths and died on the ground.
"She took like five breaths, she drowned in her blood," she said. "Then she passed right there."
Neighbors said she had a 7-year-old daughter.
"It's senseless crimes for no reason," Massiah said. "It's stupid. It makes no sense, and now there's going to a girl who's going to grow up without her mother."
Her 31-year-old brother was shot multiple times. Police officers used a tourniquet to stop his bleeding, and he was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital in stable condition.
"One of my friends called to tell me Katherine is dead, and I said, 'No, she can't be,'" Meassiah said. "Just because it's nice outside it doesn't mean the guns come out. Enjoy life. You only have one."
So far, there are no arrests.
"It always concerns me," Mayor Bill de Blasio said of rising crime. "This is something I work on with NYPD literally every day in a variety of ways. It's been painful this last year and a half, to see that all the work that was done has been disrupted by global pandemic and a perfect storm of factors. But we've rolled up our sleeves, gotten back to work with new approaches, new strategies."
Just 20 minutes before Diop was killed, gunfire erupted in Bushwick.
Officers responded to Menahan Street to find a 30-year-old man shot.
He was pronounced dead at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, and one person is reportedly in custody.
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And about 20 minutes before that, a 23-year-old man was fatally shot in his face in front of the city-run Marlboro Houses in Gravesend, Brooklyn.
He was pronounced dead at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, and two people are in custody in that case.
Citywide, shooting incidents are up 64.2% over 2020. There have been 634 shootings this year vs 386 at this time last year.
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