Video shows men wanted in connection to Queens mom killed by stray bullet
The NYPD on Wednesday released surveillance footage of two men wanted in connection with the stray-bullet shooting death of a Queens mom.
Moments before Bertha Arriaga, 43, was shot in the neck in the bedroom of her family’s Jackson Heights apartment on 34th Avenue at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday, two men tried to steal a bicycle that was locked up on a street pole outside the building, cops said.
The footage released by cops shows two men — one on a scooter — attempting to saw the lock off the bicycle before they leave empty-handed.
“There appears to be a theft occurring at the time,” NYPD Deputy Chief Julie Morrill, the commanding officer detective of Patrol Borough Queens North, told reporters during a press conference at the nearby 115th Precinct stationhouse.
“The theft that was occurring ended,” Morrill explained. “The bike was not taken by these perpetrators. A shot rang out.”
Morrill said it remains “under investigation as to who fired that shot.”
That shot wound up killing Arriaga.
Arriaga’s 14-year-old son, Angel Gabriel, heard the gunfire and found his mother bleeding to death.
“He found her breathing, in the blood, on the floor,” said the boy’s uncle, Javier Aguilar, 42. “He ran to daddy and say, ‘Mommy is on the floor!’ Daddy tried to do CPR and she was breathing, eyes open, a lot of blood on her head.”
Angel called 911 — but by the time police arrived, it was too late.
Emergency responders pronounced Arriaga dead at the scene.
Police believe the mom of three boys was killed by a stray bullet that flew through her window.
No arrests have been made.