In a tragic incident in Manhattan’s Lower East Side this month, a 57-year-old Chinese woman was shot in what appears to be a violent robbery. The suspect, a 16-year-old, was arrested on the morning of September 19th and charged with four counts related to the crime.
Late on September 9th, around 11 p.m., at an apartment building on Market Street in Lower East Side, Ying Zhu Liu, a Chinese mother aged 57, attempted to protect her husband from a robbery by a group of assailants who followed him into the apartment. She was shot in the face in front of her family, leading to her immediate death.
According to police reports, the 16-year-old suspect was apprehended by the NYPD’s 5th Precinct on Thursday, September 19th, at 7:30 a.m. He is facing charges of second-degree murder, first-degree robbery, three counts of first-degree burglary, and two counts of illegal possession of a weapon. As the suspect is a minor, his name has not been disclosed by the authorities. However, a source revealed to the New York Post that the arrested suspect is a 16-year-old African American named Dante Schaller.
In this case, at least one other young suspect is still at large, and a manhunt is underway.
Court documents revealed that on the night of the incident, when Ying Zhu Liu’s 61-year-old husband returned to the apartment building, two masked assailants followed him into the elevator and attempted to rob him. Upon reaching the 8th floor where the elevator doors opened, he saw his son waiting in the hallway. He warned his son, “Back off, they have guns.”
Ying Zhu Liu’s 32-year-old son witnessed the situation and tried to intervene, but he was struck on the head by the robbers with a gun, sustaining minor injuries.
Upon hearing the commotion and finding her husband under attack by the robbers, Ying Zhu Liu armed herself with a wooden stick and tried to fend off the assailants to help her husband and son. However, she was shot in the face by one of the suspects, collapsing on the 8th-floor corridor. When the police arrived, she was unresponsive, and paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.
The suspects fled hastily after stealing Ying Zhu Liu’s husband’s phone.
This 16-year-old suspect is one of the recent minors charged in shooting cases. According to PIX11, on Monday, September 16th, a 66-year-old man was fatally shot while driving in Queens, leading to the arrest and prosecution of a 15-year-old suspect on September 18th. The victim was driving a Nissan SUV at the time of the shooting, and after being struck in the head by a bullet, he collided with a 23-year-old woman on the roadside, causing injuries to her legs.