A grandmother shot and killed a mother before turning the gun on herself on an Upper East Side street in what police believe was a murder-suicide stemming from a custody dispute.
The shooting took place on East 88th Street between York Avenue and East End Avenue just before 9 a.m. Friday, police said at a press conference. It was just half a block from Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The mayor’s security detail heard the gunfire and raced to the scene.
A woman was found on the street near the rear of a parked Honda Civic, according to police, and a second woman was lying on the sidewalk. Both women had been shot in the head.
Just feet away, a 1-year-old child was found sitting in the back of the Civic and was unharmed in the shooting, police said.
The shooter is believed to be the child's grandmother, a retired probation officer from Illinois who has been living in New York City for three years, police said. She died as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The victim is said to be the child's mother who was shot while loading a stroller into the car's trunk after putting the child in the backseat , according to police. She suffered two gunshot wounds, one to the head and one to the lower back. She was taken to the hospital where she died.
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Two guns were recovered: one on the sidewalk near the suspected shooter, and one from inside a tote bag she had been carrying.
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The motive for the shooting is being investigated as an ongoing domestic dispute between the woman and the grandmother, concerning the woman's 4-year-old son. That dispute has led to multiple domestic incident reports and complaint reports, none of which led to arrests, however.
Police said they are not searching for any additional suspects.
