A 1-year-old baby was shot in the head and killed while he sat in his stroller as his father watched. Antiq Hennis, the victim, was just 16 months old.
The shooting incident occurred on Sunday at 7:20 pm on Bristol Street In Brownsville, New York. Police say the shooter was aiming at Antiq’s father but missed and shot the baby in the head.
Bishop Willie Billips of the NYPD Clergy Task Force commented on the shooting: “I got the call from a family member about 8 p.m. I also heard it on my police monitor. I rushed over to be with the family at Brookdale Hospital.”
Billips was in the hospital waiting room when the doctors , who were fighting to save Antiq’s life entered:” Then the doctors came into the lounge,” he says. “They told us that Antiq had passed. I tried to comfort this young couple as they collapsed into sobs.”
The family of the 1-year-old were then asked to identify their son in a viewing room at the hospital. Bishop Billips continued:
“The doctors had worked so hard to save him. But they couldn’t. They had cleaned him up, and so he was still recognizable. Then the parents gazed down at their dead son. They collapsed into each other’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably. The mother kept saying, ‘My baby, my baby, my baby… ‘ ”
Billips tried his best to console the distraught family. Speaking about the experience, Billips continued :.”But looking at that innocent baby shot in the head, I was overwhelmed with emotion myself,” he says. “It was my worst moment as a clergyman. It was also the symbol of what my mission is: To rid the streets of guns.”
Antiq Hennis is the 16th child under the age of 16 to be shot in New York City in 4 months and is the second to have died. The funeral of the 1-year-old shot and killed is to take place in New York in the coming days.
