A NYC woman and mother was fatally struck by a stray bullet as she was walking to her local grocery store the day after Christmas.
Now her family is mourning her untimely loss.
64-year-old Valeria Ortega was shot in the head around 11:31 a.m. that afternoon while on the corner of Dyckman St. and Vermilyea Ave., just blocks away from her home.
According to police, Ortega was an innocent bystander in a drive-by shooting between two moped drivers and another driver traveling in a sedan.
No one else was injured in the incident. Hours after the shooting, what was once Ortega’s blood-soaked scarf laid next to a pool of blood as police investigated.
ABC 7 spoke with local street vendor, Luis Senfleur, who had witnessed the shooting.
Senfleur stated, “She wasn’t moving, and it was in the head that she got hit. I thought it wasn’t real, the shot. But when I saw her fall, I said … ‘They’re real.’ I was the one that was supposed to call immediately but I get nervous. You know, I’ve never been in this situation.”
And apparently, crime has only continued to worsen in the community, according to Senfleur.
Ortega’s husband, Vicente Garcia, described his wife as a “doting mother” who had been “generous and kind almost too much for her own good.”
This shooting came just minutes after another shooting was reported nearly half a mile away, where a 26-year-old man was left seriously injured.
At this time, police are investigating the motive behind both shootings and have said that they do not appear to be connected in any way.
