A Harlem family is shattered after a pregnant woman was fatally shot while attempting to intervene in a fight between her ex and boyfriend.
Shanice Young, 31, was shot in the head allegedly by her ex-boyfriend following her baby shower early Sunday, the New York Daily News reports. Her daughters witnessed the killing. According to police, the shooting occurred when her ex-boyfriend showed up at around 1:15 a.m. and confronted her current boyfriend.
According to witnesses, the unnamed gunman chased the boyfriend through Young’s apartment building until they reached the street, where Young was putting presents into their car.
“[The gunman] came in chasing the boyfriend,” said Jose Morales, 46, the super of her building. “They ran through here and out the other side and they ran downstairs.”
Young reportedly intervened and tried to make peace with the two men, but her ex wasn’t having it and shot her in the head, police said.
“I helped her put her gifts in the car and I said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’” her father, Thurman Young, told the Daily News.
“She was going to have her baby in five days. She said ‘This baby is coming in five days, Daddy, get ready’. I said ‘I’ll be ready’. That’s the last thing she said to me.”
Young’s two daughters, ages 15 and 6, witnessed their mom’s murder from the car. The shooter fled the scene, according to police. EMS rushed Young to the Harlem Hospital, where she died.
“I just can’t sleep — I guess I’m in shock,” the victim’s father said. “The whole of Harlem is mourning right now.”
Police have not apprehended the gunman, nor have they released his name because they have yet to officially “identify him as a suspect,” Daily News writes.
“It was a beautiful night,” Young’s father said of the baby shower. “Me and my daughter danced, father-daughter dance, and I cut the cake . . . It was packed. We had music, a lot of food, a lot of drinks.”
Young was raising her daughters and two younger siblings following her mother‘s death from ovarian cancer about a year ago. She had been living in the apartment building on W. 128th St. near Frederick Douglass Blvd. for three years. Her father claims she broke up with the ex-boyfriend after he cheated on her.
“I’ve seen him a few times,” her father said of the ex. “He came over to the house. He was respectful.”
“She put him out because he was cheating on her,” he added. ”Then [he] does this because she had another boyfriend.”
After Young and the ex split, she filed three orders of protection against him, according to her father.
“Shanice was scared to death of him,” he said. “Shanice would give you anything. She was very generous.”
A friend shared her memories of the young mother as well.
“She was there anytime of the day,” said a friend of Young who spoke anonymously out of fear of the shooter, per Daily News. “If you needed a plate of food or a bottle of water, she was there. If you needed a coat or a sweater, she was there.”
“She was just a beautiful person,” Morales said. “It’s so sad. I wish it would have never happened.”
Robert Rice, a chaplain for Harlem Hospital called the incident “senseless.”
“I’m very upset and I’m angry,” Rice told WPIX. “I shouldn’t be angry as a clergy, but this one here has touched my heart.”
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