‘Bundle of joy’: Neighbors mourn girl, 11, fatally shot in the Bronx
LONGWOOD, the Bronx (PIX11) — Family and friends of 11-year-old Khyara Tay, who was fatally shot in the Bronx, gathered on Tuesday to mourn her death.
“She was real outgoing, adventurous, willing to try new things, just like a bundle of joy,” a family friend said during a memorial for the girl. “Any parent would ask for her as a child. Good grades, focused in school.”
Police overnight released surveillance video of two suspects on a scooter, one of whom was seen firing shots along Fox Street near Westchester Avenue in the Bronx. One round traveled half a block, hitting the girl in the stomach.
“She came running in the store and kept rubbing her stomach and saying, ‘Ow, ow,’” eyewitness Maya Jones said.
Tay was not the intended target of the gunfire, police said. Detectives believe the bullet was meant for a man seen in the video hiding in a corridor. Police are still looking for the suspects behind the shooting.
"We will track it down and chase the shooter as far as it goes,” Deputy Chief Timothy McCormack, commanding officer of Detective Bureau Bronx, said.
Tay, who was bleeding and badly injured, ran into a nail salon for help.
“There was a lady who was there, and she ended up putting pressure on her stomach until the ambulance got there,” a witness said.
Mayor Eric Adams visited her family at Lincoln Hospital and said he prayed with them before Tay died.
“An 11-year-old baby and all of these children we are losing,” Adams said.
At least nine children have been shot in New York City since just the beginning of the month. But Tay's family doesn't want their little girl to become just another number.
“The family's message is we don't want her to be remembered as a statistic,” a family friend said during the vigil. “We want everybody to know who she was she had a loving family mother and father who lost almost everything.”
Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, downloading the NYPD Crime Stoppers mobile app, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).