NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- A 20-year-old mother was fatally shot in the head at close range as she pushed her infant in a stroller on the Upper East Side on Wednesday night, police said as they searched for a person of interest.
Police are investigating the shooting as a potential case of domestic violence and have identified a person of interest and released the name of the victim as Azsia Johnson of Staten Island.
The potential relationship between the victim and shooter is not known.
City Council Member Julie Menin, who represents the area, told 1010 WINS that the victim was the 3-month-old child's mother.
The baby was not hurt, police said, but was taken to a hospital for a medical evaluation.
Johnson was shot in the head at point-blank range by an assailant dressed in all black near the intersection of Lexington Avenue and East 95th Street around 8:30 p.m.
First responders rushed the woman to Metropolitan Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Her mother Lisa Desort told Fox News that “this is a domestic violence case from January.”
“We called the precinct,” Desort said. “All that anyone needs to know in this city is we called numerous times for her protection.”
“No one protected my daughter, and now she's dead,” she said
The crime scene was still active Thursday morning, with police tape up across a sidewalk stained with blood. Nearby, a bullet hole was in a vehicle.
“More guns in our city means more lives lost,” Mayor Eric Adams said during a news conference at the site of the shooting. “It means more babies crying, as those who love them lie dead.”
New York, like many other U.S. cities, has contended with rising concern about violent crime, though NYPD statistics show shootings have declined about 12% and murders 13% so far this year, compared with the same period last year. But murders remain at their second-highest level since 2012.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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