As the weather gets warmer and the days get longer, we see more moms and children enjoying the outdoors. On April 1, 2026, Lianna Charles-Moore took her two young kids for a walk in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The 20-year-old mother suddenly found herself in the midst of gunfire. The mother tried to keep her children safe, but a bullet struck and killed her 7-month-old daughter, Kaori Patterson-Moore. As her family prepared to lay the baby to rest, they chose a tiny Minnie Mouse coffin as a stark reminder of Kaori’s pure innocence.
Kaori’s mother had no idea what had happened.
The distraught mother told the New York Post she heard a popping sound but initially thought it might be fireworks. When her young son jumped out of the stroller into her arms, she realized what really happened.
“I was hugging him, and then when I looked to my left, my daughter was just there, lying there. She was shot in the head. She was just bleeding. It was just too much,” she recalled to the Post.
The shooting has traumatized the entire family.
Charles-Moore told the Post that a bullet grazed her 2-year-old son, who has no concept of what happened to Kaori. She said he asks about her all the time and when she’ll come home.
“My daughter was innocent. She didn’t deserve that. We were just going outside to go get her a few things, and my son a few things, Charles-Moore added. “My son got impacted with everything that happened, yeah, so it was just too much, because they could have killed my son and my daughter.”
Linda Moore Oyinkoinyan, Kaori’s grandmother, recalled to the Post the moment she received the call at work that her granddaughter had died.
“My daughter called me at my job. She was screaming. I had to hang up on her. She was scaring me,” Oyinkoinyan recalled. “She said, ‘They shot Kaori in the head.’ She was screaming. She was frantic. I just passed out in the class.”
Two men face charges in Kaori’s death.
Police arrested 21-year-old Amuri Greene and 18-year-old Matthew Rodriguez in connection with the baby’s death. According to court documents obtained by CBS News, Rodriguez and Greene arrived at the intersection of Humboldt and Moore on a moped just after 1 p.m. the day of the shooting. Greene allegedly shot multiple rounds into the crowd as Rodriguez acted as driver. He reportedly crashed the vehicle, which sent Greene to the hospital.
“Little Kaori was killed, and her 2-year-old brother was wounded – all because of a decision to settle a dispute with gunfire, with no regard for who might be harmed,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez told CBS News. “With homicides in Brooklyn at a record low, this is exactly the kind of violence that we must fight against and never accept. We are determined to hold these defendants fully accountable.”
Both men pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, attempted murder, and endangering the welfare of a child charges.
Kaori’s family made a bold statement with her casket.
The family chose to put Kaori’s pink Minnie Mouse casket inside a clear carriage pulled by a white horse as part of her funeral procession. There was no denying a baby was inside, and clearly she did not deserve to die.
National Action Network Founder Reverend Al Sharpton delivered Kaori’s eulogy, NY1 reported.
“If you can look at a coffin that doesn’t even need pallbearers and that doesn’t shake you in your heart, then something’s numb about you, and we cannot have a numb community,” Sharpton plinted out.
Kaori barely took her first breath before she took her last. Gun violence deaths are never easy, but innocent babies losing their lives because adults can’t keep themselves under control is truly disgusting.
