By Nayaba Arinde
Editor at Large

More stabbings, shootings, and property damage have been in the news these past few days. But, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani insists that Major Crime declined 5.3% Citywide, with the “Safest start to the year in public housing in recorded history with fewest murders, shooting Incidents, shooting victims, and robberies.”

Celebrating his first 100 days in office, he declared, “Our approach to public safety is working. These numbers speak to an NYPD using every lever at its disposal to deliver a safer New York City to all who call it home.”
Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, the family of fatally shot 7-month-old Kaori Patterson-Moore just laid her to rest this week.
The tragedy brought up the community response to youth violence.
“If this doesn’t shake you up–this baby, this casket–how much do we need to see before we start cleaning up our community?” Rev. Al Sharpton said at the funeral.

“The solution is in our own hands. These are our children. Our communities,” Brownsville founder of Men Elevating Leadership Daniel Goodine told Our Time Press. “We must regroup, analyze, and act on agreed methods to save and secure our neighborhoods. We need the teams out here walking these streets to make sure that we do not turn a blind eye to harmful behavior. We have to check ourselves. We want our families to be protected and be able to move freely without fear.”

On the bright afternoon on April 1st, 2026, Lianna Charles-Moore and Jamari Patterson were walking with their baby Kaori Patterson-Moore in a stroller and their toddler son in Bushwick. Then, allegedly with Matthew Rodriguez, 18, driving a moped, Amuri Greene, 21, on the back, shot at them, fatally hitting the baby in the head. As they sped away, they hit a vehicle. Greene was hospitalized and arrested, and Rodriquez fled to Pennsylvania but was later apprehended and brought back to the city.

In court on Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty to the murder charge they both face. Rodriquez said, “I didn’t know he was going to pull the trigger.”
Kaori’s grandfather, Pastor Godsking Oyinkoinyan, said, “Why would someone take a gun and point it at a stroller? A stroller?”
The community has been grieving with the family ever since with a vigil and the funeral.

“She was innocent…This is my little baby angel…She was innocent,” said Kaori’s grandmother, Pastor Linda Oyinkoinyan. “She was just learning how to take a few steps, and she was starting to talk. She was always smiling. This is devastating….I will never get over this.”
There were masses of white flowers and pink balloons at the Lawrence H. Woodward Funeral Home on Monday, April 13th, 2026. The signature color was pink, worn by family and friends. The muffled crying was heart-wrenching.

On Tuesday morning, a white horse-drawn carriage took the tiny pink casket through the Brooklyn streets.
“It is heartbreaking that we are burying a baby today. We are going to hold the individuals accountable,” said DA Eric Gonzalez, who was at the funeral seated next to Attorney General Tish James and Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman.
Rev. Sharpton delivered the eulogy. It was a powerful indictment in how society operates right now, standing in front of “The casket does not even need pallbearers.”

The room was packed. Adults standing in front of the tiny open pink casket were fighting back tears and blessing the baby with praise.
Some of the youth standing towards the back responded with held-back tears when family members spoke, and songs were sung, and looked at each other with uneasy frowns during the repeated critiques of perpetrating negative behavior in the streets.
Sharpton advised, “Don’t let how people define you confine you.”
They responded with nods and awakening.

“We must have a movement come out of this from all religions, from all ranks. We were not born to be gangsters and thugs. We were born to be kings and queens…even if you are not responsible for being down, you are responsible for getting up,” the President of the National Action Network continued. “We need to take responsibility for our community… We don’t just need to take the guns out of these kids’ hands; we need to get those selling the guns.

I wonder why they don’t sell guns in other neighborhoods…and don’t have tragedies like this in other neighborhoods. They don’t permit certain things in their neighborhoods. We permit ourselves to glorify being hoodlums, rather than tell our children that you were not born to sit up in Riker’s Island…to call your women out of their name. You can be whatever it is God made you to be.”

At the funeral, grandparents, family members, and speakers like Attorney General Tish James told the youth to stand up and do something productive, and avoid the violent subculture in these streets.
While the police said that Kaori was shot by a stray bullet from the individuals caught up in a gang beef, others close to the family say it was not.

Abdul Hakeem from Family Unification told Our Time Press, “Gang violence is not the solution. They have to go. Can they name one successful individual in a gang? It leads to incarceration or the grave. You’ve got to make a conscious decision to change your life, and then stand on that. This is a harsh reality.”

On Sunday, April 19th, 2026, Student Minister Henry Muhammad told Our Time Press that Muhammad Mosque #7C will be hosting an 11am service in Restoration Plaza on Fulton Street in Bed Stuy.

Muhammad is scheduled to deliver a keynote address which will include “Guidance on the Proper Handling of People, Conflict Resolution, Cleanliness, Respect, and Gang Violence in relation to our Youth.”
There is a plan to create a “Comprehensive Movement this Summer to put in place systems to ‘Make Our Community a Decent and Safe Place to Live.’”

It can be done, Muhammad determined, as they are “planning to go throughout different communities in Brooklyn, with this clarion call…with all of the investments that are being made in the inner cities to rebuild structures of housing, businesses, schools and hospitals.”

Solution-focused, Muhammad noted, “There is not a real focus on building the most valuable asset of the city, state or country, and that is the people. Particularly, Black people. And, most importantly, our youth. The death of little Kaori is a prime example. We must rebuild the family structure in our community. Getting back to basic moral values and respect.

Minister Farrakhan said that family is the cornerstone of a nation … We cannot make our Community a Decent and Safe Place to live if we don’t take control of our community. …Economically, we have much potential in every Black community. But we are disunited and manifesting a lot of ignorance…the Black Community is colonized all throughout New York City. We must put a stop to this and take control of ourselves and our spending power as a people.”