The uncle of slain 7-month-old Kaori Patterson-Moore said the girl’s mother is “breaking down all day every day,“ as the grief-stricken family laid the little girl to rest Monday.
Kaori was fatally shot by a stray bullet while in her stroller during a botched gang hit in Brooklyn last week in a killing that has sparked outrage across the city.
“I’m just trying to take care of her,” said Michael Moore, brother to the girl’s mom, 20-year-old Lianna Moore.
“I’ve done all my crying. I can’t do it anymore.” he said. “It’s senseless. This generation is wicked.”
More than 150 mourners gathered at the Lawrence H. Woodward Funeral Home in Bedford-Stuyvesant to pay respects to the family. A brass Minnie Mouse plaque on the casket displayed her name and read, “Our Little Angel.”
“It’s devastating for our family,“ said Kaori’s godfather, 50-year-old Rah Jennings, 50. “You don’t expect this for anyone, but especially devastating when it’s a baby.“
Rev. Al Sharpton was scheduled to deliver a eulogy at a service for the baby girl at the Cornerstone Baptist Church after the wake, but that was canceled and Sharpton instead made remarks inside the funeral home in a service that was closed to the press.
Kaori was sitting in her stroller on April 1 when a gunman riding on the back of a moped opened fire at the corner of Humboldt and Moore Sts. in East Williamsburg about 1:20 p.m., cops said.
Police believe the shooter may have been gunning for the tot’s father, 22-year-old Jamari Patterson, but his bullet struck Kaori instead, then passed through her head and grazed her 2-year-old brother’s back.
“Her little brother is sticking close to his father,“ Jennings said at the service Kaori. “He has no idea what’s going on. He keeps saying the baby is sleeping.“
Police investigate (main) after a 7-month-old girl in a stroller was fatally shot near Humboldt and Moore Sts. in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Wednesday. The suspects are pictured top-inset, and a bloody pink knit baby’s bonnet is pictured on the ground near the scene. (Gardiner Anderson; Kerry Burke / New York Daily News; Obtained by NYDN)
Lianna Moore earlier told the News that she and her fiancé had taken their two young kids out to get baby supplies when she heard a sound, like fireworks, that caused her son to jump out of the stroller.
The mom carried her son, Kaizen, who wept with fright as she wheeled her daughter into a nearby store. Moore was comforting the boy when she looked down and noticed something was wrong with her baby girl.
The NYPD released surveillance footage of the gunman and his accomplice in the stray bullet shooting of a 7-month-old girl in a stroller near Humboldt and Moore Sts. in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (NYPD)
The little girl had recently taken her first steps and said her first word, “mama,” when she was killed, her grandmother said.
“She was loving. She was caring. She had a beautiful spirit,” said Linda Oyinkoinyan. “She was always laughing, always smiling. She just learned how to say ‘mama’. She just took her first steps at 7 months. She was very smart. The baby was very beautiful.”
Police said that the shooting was part of an ongoing gang beef between a gang that operates in the Bushwick Houses and another crew known as Money Over Everything.
The accused gunman, Amuri Greene, 21, and the moped driver, Matthew Rodriguez, 18, crashed shortly after the shooting. Greene, who broke his leg in the crash, was taken to the hospital and arrested.
Courtesy of Lianna Moore
Kaori Patterson-Moore, a 7-month-old girl, was fatally shot near Humboldt and Moore Sts. in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Wednesday. (Courtesy of Lianna Moore)
Rodriguez was caught a few days later in Pennsylvania and is expected to be returned to New York in the coming days, cops said.
While being questioned by police, Greene claimed he was aiming at Kaori’s father, and was seeking revenge for a prior shooting when he opened fire. But it wasn’t clear if Greene or the tot’s dad were involved in the alleged earlier shooting. Greene has ties to Money Over Everything, which operates out of the Marcy Houses, police said.
He and Rodriguez have been indicted on a raft of criminal charges, including murder, attempted murder and assault.
After a vigil near the scene of the shooting last week, Kaori’s dad released a letter to the media in which he described his “unbearable pain” at the loss of his daughter and said he became determined to turn his life around after Kaori was born.