An 11-month baby girl identified as Dior Harris was murdered and two other young girls were injured in a drive-by shooting in upstate New York this weekend, according to reports.
Dior Harris was just weeks away from her first birthday when she was shot multiple times just on 6.51pm Sunday while in the backseat of a car in Syracuse, CNY Central reported.
The three girls were in the backseat while their mothers were in the front of the car driving through the Strathmore neighborhood when shots were fired into the vehicle from a passing car.
‘She was just a baby,’ her mom, Desiree Seymore, told the outlet. ‘She was so strong. She didn’t even cry when it happened, but we lost her.’
Seymore and her cousin, Shakema Buckmon, had been driving with their daughters when someone opened fire from a car headed in the opposite direction, Syracuse.com reported.
‘They just started, ‘pow, pow, pow,’ just started shooting at my car, and then just drove away,’ Buckmon told CNY Central.
While the women were unharmed, their daughters were struck by the gunfire, police said.
Dior was rushed to Upstate University Hospital, where she died of her injuries.
‘I tried to save her, I tried to get to the hospital as fast as I could, I tried, I tried but she had already passed before we could make it down the street,’ Buckmon said.
Buckmon’s children, who are 3 and 8 years old, are expected to survive, police said.
No motive has been released for the shooting.
Chavez R. Ocasio, 23, was arrested Monday night in connection to Dior’s death, a law enforcement source told Syracuse.com.
It’s unclear what his role was in the shooting death.
He was booked on charges of murder, criminal possession of a firearm, tampering with physical evidence and violation of parole, the outlet reported.