A Brooklyn mother, Zurana Horton, 33-year-old pregnant woman was killed on Friday afternoon as she tried to protect schoolchildren at Public School 298 in the borough’s Brownsville section from a gunman perched atop a nearby roof.
Horton was hit in the head in front of the Lucky Supermarket at Pitkin Ave. and Watkins St. after she threw herself over a group of children, cops and witnesses said. The gunman’s spree began about 2:30 p.m. where he fired at least a dozen shots with an automatic pistol onto Watkins Street from his perch atop a five-story building on Pitkin Avenue, the police said. A second woman, 31, was also shot and was in stable condition on Friday night at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center.
An 11-year-old girl, identified as Cheanne McKnight, a 6th-grader at P.S. 298, also involved in the chaos was being treated at Brookdale for a graze wound to the cheek. The police said, about 15 minutes after the last students were dismissed from Public School 298, at 85 Watkins Street, where about 540 children in prekindergarten through eighth grade are enrolled.
For a crime so devastating, it’s a mystery why it isn’t receiving national attention, or is it? Brownsville remains one of the more crime-plagued areas, one in the city where police officers are most likely to stop people in the street to question and sometimes frisk them — a tactic that has drawn criticism as racially motivated, but that the police say saves lives.
The crime has not yet resulted in an arrest. Horton’s bravery should not be ignored. Ms. Horton was a devoted mother with several children, according to friends.
Jerome D. Bailey Jr
HBCU Buzz Staff Writer
