The 16-year-old girl who was gunned down inside her Brooklyn home made a dying declaration, blurting out a man’s name to cops in her last breath, police sources said Wednesday.
Shemel Mercurius — who was shot multiple times in her sixth-floor apartment on Brooklyn Avenue in East Flatbush on Tuesday — uttered the name as she lay dying, sources said.
Police were hunting a 24-year-old man, who cops believe can be seen in surveillance video entering and fleeing Mercurius’ apartment with an apparent assault rifle, according to sources.
Mercurius, a junior at Edward R. Murrow High School and a native of Guyana, was babysitting her 3-year-old cousin when she was blasted by bullets, hitting her in each bicep, around 6 p.m., sources said.
Building surveillance video shows a man — presumed to be the man Mercurius referred to — and a woman in the elevator together. The man exits the elevator on the fifth floor and the woman continues up to the sixth floor.
Mercurius can be seen in the surveillance video standing in her doorway looking toward the elevator and she suddenly shuts the door as the man tries to get in.
Video also shows Mercurius open the door to the apartment again and the man runs in with what appears to be an assault rifle, followed by the woman.
Mercurius then can be seen in the frame falling down inside the apartment and the man and woman flee the scene, sources said.
“They’re looking for him. Her boyfriend. Nobody knew that she had this boyfriend. I always told her, ‘Shemel, you’re a beautiful girl, don’t worry about boys. Focus on your education,’” the teen’s grandmother Joan, 70, told The Post.
“She died before she got to the hospital. But before she died, she gave the cops her boyfriend’s name,” said Joan. “She told them he shot her.”
The teen had previously told her, “I don’t want no boyfriend. I don’t have any boyfriend,” the grandmother said.
Cops found the teen’s 3-year-old cousin Josiah inside the apartment unharmed. Mercurius was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital.
The teen’s devastated father, who emigrated with her from Guyana in 2012, was stunned by her brutal death.
“My daughter came here four years ago to live a better life. For better opportunities,” said Dexter Mercurius, 38. “Everyone loved her. She was smart and never got into any trouble.”
“Before she passed, she called out a boy’s name,” he said. “I don’t know if it was the boyfriend or not. I just have questions right now and no answers.”
Dexter said his distraught family “will not rest” until his daughter’s killer is caught.
“We are all traumatized,” said Mercurius’ aunt Latoya Pryce, 31, the mother of the boy her niece was babysitting at the time of her death.
“What could she have done to have a target put on her like this, to come to her home and take her life in front of her 3-year-old cousin?” she said.
Family members said the teen’s mom is flying in from Guyana.
The shooting came hours after city politicians and anti-gun advocates kicked off Gun Violence Awareness Month.
“It’s sad and disheartening that I am issuing a statement on yet another fatal shooting, and worse that another family is in unimaginable pain and distress. Much more, we lost a 16-year-old child who was at the beginning of her life,” Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), who attended the event, said in a statement.