Kaori Patterson-Moore was in her stroller when police said a moped drive-by shooting on a Brooklyn street killed the 7-month-old girl Wednesday afternoon, according to a court complaint described in a NYPD update. On Friday, the NYPD said it arrested a second suspect in the case, identifying him as Matthew Rodriguez, 18, and saying he was taken into custody in Pennsylvania by NYPD detectives working with U.S. Marshals. The arrest came two days after the police commissioner characterized the killing as a tragedy that “truly shocks the conscience.”
Police said the suspected shooter, 21-year-old Amuri Greene, was arrested shortly after the gunfire that killed Kaori. Greene pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges at an arraignment Friday night, and police said he was held without bail.
The case began with police describing what happened during the Wednesday drive-by. Authorities said two men sped down a Brooklyn street on a moped, and Greene, riding on the back of the vehicle, fired into a group of people at a street corner, according to the court complaint.
The complaint also described injuries and the aftermath. Police said that after the shooting, the moped sped and crashed into a car two blocks away, hurling both men off the vehicle. Greene was injured and soon was hospitalized in police custody, while the driver of the moped fled, according to police.
Kaori’s mother, Lianna Charles-Moore, told the New York Post that after hearing what she initially thought were fireworks, she was comforting her startled 2-year-old son. She said the boy had been grazed by a bullet, and that when she looked to her left she saw her baby daughter bleeding and that the infant had been shot in the head, the AP report said.
Charles-Moore told the newspaper, “My daughter was innocent. She didn’t deserve that,” adding that she said her daughter was just about starting to crawl and had recently begun saying “Mama.” In the complaint, authorities said Greene told police he was aiming for another person in the crowd.
Greene’s attorney, Jay Schwitzman, said after court that he would conduct “an independent and thorough investigation of the facts and circumstances of this tragic incident.” Police said authorities had not yet released court papers detailing Rodriguez’s alleged role, though they said they have not indicated they were looking for anyone other than Greene and the moped driver. Police also said they did not immediately have information on how the men may know each other or where Rodriguez lives, and that no working telephone number for him could immediately be found.
Police and city leaders reacted to Kaori’s death on Wednesday. Authorities said Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch expressed heartbreak and outrage, and Tisch told a news briefing that “This is a terrible day in our city, a tragedy that truly shocks the conscience.”