A city is looking for answers after a one-year-old New Orleans girl was gunned down in the arms of her babysitter while they were on a walk down a city street late this week.
Little Londyn Samuels was killed after a bullet continued through the back of her 18-year-old nanny on Thursday night, leaving the babysitter wounded, but in stable condition as of Saturday.
The two had been on a stroll through Central City, when shots rang out around 8:20pm. NBC News reports that there were two shots fired, both passing through the babysitter's torso and into baby Londyn.
She was able to frantically call Londyn's father, 20-year-old Keion Reed, alerting him that his little daughter was shot. Her mother, Andrea Samuels, 22, broke down crying when she heard the news, family members told New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL-TV.
Keion Reed, 20, the father of Londyn Samuels, speaks to Mayor Mitch Landrieu during a candlelight vigil for the child in Central City.
"She was my world, she was everything, she was my reason for getting up in the morning," the grief-stricken father later told the station.
Family members told the Times-Picayune that Londyn was just learning how to walk. "She used to stand on her feet and try to wiggle," her aunt, Euneka McGee, 20, told the paper.
On Friday, Aug. 30, family members of murdered toddler Londyn Samuels gather at the spot where she was killed on Thursday in Central City to remember the happy one-year-old child.
In the hours following Thursday’s shooting, the New Orleans Police Department rushed to find the shooting suspects, releasing grainy surveillance video showing a shadowy figure climbing over a fence and making a run for it.
Witnesses told police that they saw two men running from the scene of the shooting, though authorities do not believe that the two were caught in crossfire.
NOPD releases surveillance photos of baby shooting suspects, showing a shadowy figure running off after the murder.
According to the Times-Picayune, the NOPD has taken in a man and a woman for questioning, and are searching for a second man in regard to the shooting.
The city's mayor, Mitch Landrieu, told NBC News that the violence must be quashed. "When a young man kills a child in the arms of an 18-year-old, we have to take it to a new level," he said.
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Sunday, September 1st 2013 at 6:44PM
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