Murder charge in teen basketball player's stray bullet death
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. — A suspect arrested in the death of a 13-year-old girl who was killed by a stray bullet in the suburban New York city of Mount Vernon has been charged with second-degree murder, reports CBS New York.
David Hardy, 21, has also been charged with criminal possession of a weapon in the fatal shooting of Shamoya McKenzie and may face additional charges, authorities said. Police say the stray bullet hit McKenzie in the head as she sat in the passenger seat of her mother’s car on her way home from basketball practice on New Year’s Eve.
“Shamoya’s death was not in vain,” Mount Vernon Mayor Richard Thomas said at a news conference.
Investigators say Hardy, an alleged gang member, was aiming for another man who was grazed by a bullet during the attack.
After the shooting, they say Hardy fled Mount Vernon and headed south, triggering a multi-state manhunt, but then returned to Mount Vernon shortly before he was arrested.
Nadine McKenzie, still grappling with the anguish of losing her only child, said she has one question for her daughter’s accused killer:
“Why? Why would you take the law in your hands?” McKenzie said in an interview with CBS New York. “Just think about your sister, your mother, your wife or whatever. If someone killed them, how would you feel?”
The city announced in a statement released Tuesday that Hardy was briefly employed as a seasonal maintenance worker with Mount Vernon. He was notified that his employment was terminated in December 2016 after he failed to show up for his assigned job, according to the city.
Hardy will next appear in court on February 2.
