The gunman accused of killing a 7-month-old girl during a botched Brooklyn gang hit confessed that he was aiming at the baby’s father when he pulled the trigger — a claim the child’s mother defiantly denied in an interview with the Daily News Saturday.
In a recorded statement to detectives, alleged shooter Amuri Greene said he was aiming at little Kaori Patterson-Moore‘s father and that the father “was the defendant’s intended target,” documents released in Brooklyn Criminal Court reveal.
But Kaori’s mother slammed the allegation, claiming that her fiancé had nothing to do with their baby’s death.
“No, he was not the target,” Liana Moore told The News when reached Saturday. “That’s not what it was. Everybody keeps saying that they came outside to target my fiancé, but he had nothing to do with it.”
Even the little girl’s father, who isn’t being named by this paper because he hasn’t been accused of a crime, thinks he’s partly responsible for his child’s death, Moore said.
“Now he’s blaming himself for what happened to our daughter, and it’s not his fault,” Moore said. “They could have been aiming at anybody.”
The mother said her fiancé was not up to speaking to the press on Saturday.
“He doesn’t want to talk to anybody,” Moore said.
Greene, 21, has been charged with murder, attempted murder and assault for opening fire into a crowd as he rode on the back of a scooter driven by Matthew Rodriguez, 18, near the corner of Moore and Humboldt Sts. in East Williamsburg Wednesday afternoon.
During their harried getaway, Rodriguez crashed the scooter a few blocks away. Greene suffered a broken leg in the crash and was quickly arrested.
Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News
Police secure the scene of an abandoned scooter on Warsoff Place near Park Ave. in Brooklyn, New York, on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, after a baby was shot nearby on Humboldt St. and Moore St. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
Rodriguez escaped to Pennsylvania, where he was grabbed by NYPD detectives with the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force on Friday.
The teen is expected to be extradited back to New York on Saturday. Charges were pending.
During Greene’s arraignment on his charges at Brooklyn Criminal Court Friday night, Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Jordan Rossman said the gunman “missed his target but shot two of the target’s children, fatally shooting a 7-month-old baby in the head and wounding the baby’s 2-year-old brother.”
Greene, who is still hospitalized, was ordered held without bail Friday night.
Kaori was sitting in a stroller when a bullet fired by Greene went through the infant’s skull. The stray bullet also grazed her older brother’s back.
Once the bullets started flying, Moore raced her children to a nearby bodega, where she found blood on Kaori’s face. Her father ran the child to Woodhull Hospital about seven blocks away, but doctors couldn’t save her.
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)
On Saturday, Moore said her son was still complaining of pain to his back.
“I have to take him back to the hospital,” she said. “He’s still got a big circle bruise on his back. It’s a big bruise.”
Also wounded in the shooting was 31-year-old Bernius Moldonado. A bullet that hit a wall behind her shattered and she was hit in the left calf with shrapnel.
“I am doing good. I’m doing fine,” she told the Daily News Friday. “(My boyfriend) took out the metal pieces, and, you know, he’s my doctor.”
“I took it like a man,” she said of the DIY surgery.
Maldonado was outside a nearby grocery, waiting for her boyfriend when she heard several shots. Pandemonium erupted almost immediately.
“I thought it was fireworks at first,” she recalled. “(Then) I seen everybody, like, dodging and getting low. And then that’s when I felt like something was burning in my leg.
“That’s when we noticed that it was the baby that got shot,” she said. “The father picked her up, and I told him to run with her to the hospital. And I stood behind with the mom, calling (the) cops, and telling them what happened.”
Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News
Police investigate after a 7-month-old baby girl in a stroller was fatally shot near Humboldt and Moore Sts. in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
“She was lifeless,” Maldonado said of the baby. “(Her father) was gonna put her back in the stroller and run with the stroller. I was like, ‘No, just run to the hospital!’”
“The mom just kept screaming ‘My baby!’” she said. “I felt heartbroken, ’cause I got four kids of my own, so that breaks my heart. I can’t imagine something happens to my own kids.”
Maldonado didn’t see the shooter and wasn’t sure who he was aiming at. Her child goes to school with Kaori’s older brother, she said.
“They are nice people. They didn’t deserve that at all,” she said. “I hope they get justice.”
Within hours of the shooting, detectives began working on the theory that the gunman was aiming at Kaori’s dad, who they believe has links to members of the Money Over Everything gang in the Bushwick Houses.
The gang, known as MOE, is in the middle of an ongoing dispute with a crew Greene is associated with from the Marcy Houses, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Thursday.
“We’re still looking into that,” Kenny said. “We know that he (Kaori’s dad) does have an association with some other (Money Over Everything) gang members. He is not in our criminal group database as an MOE member but based on the geography and where he was at the time, we are looking into that.”
Rebecca White / New York Daily News
New York Attorney General Letitia James, left, looks on as Christina Poitier, the grandmother of baby Kaori Patterson-Moore, speaks during a prayer vigil on Saturday at the site where she was killed in Brooklyn. (Rebecca White / New York Daily News)
On Saturday, a prayer vigil was held on Moore St., where participants expressed their condolences over Kaori’s death and prayed that the baby’s family gets justice.
But Moore wasn’t thinking about justice as she planned her little girl’s funeral.
“It doesn’t really change anything, my baby’s still gone,” Moore said about the arrests. “I just hope they never come out.”
With Rebecca White