Mom Killed On UES ID'd As Police Seek Person Of Interest: Lawmaker

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A manhunt is on for the person who fatally shot a young mother in the head as she pushed her baby in a stroller on the Upper East Side late Wednesday, officials said.

Police have identified a person of interest in the senseless killing, City Councilmember Julie Menin told Patch Thursday morning, though the person's name has not been publicly released.

It's possible the shooting was an act of domestic violence, Menin added.

Hours later on Thursday, police released the name of the 20-year-old victim: Azsia Johnson, a Staten Island resident.

Johnson was pushing her three-month-old infant in a stroller on East 95th Street between Third and Lexington avenues about 8:25 p.m. Wednesday, when the gunman approached and fired "a single shot into her head from a very close range," Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell told reporters at the scene on Wednesday.

She was rushed to Metropolitan Hospital, but could not be saved, police said. Her baby was taken to a hospital for evaluation.

The gunman — a man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black pants — fled eastbound on foot along East 95th Street, Sewell said.

The commissioner asked anyone with information to call the NYPD's anonymous tip line.

Mayor Eric Adams, who was also at the scene Wednesday, said the killing was more evidence of "the over proliferation of guns on our streets."

"It shows just how this national problem is impacting families," Adams said. "It doesn’t matter if you are on the Upper East Side, or East New York, Brooklyn."

While an NYPD spokesperson could not say whether Johnson was the child's mother, Menin confirmed that she was.

Menin noted that the killing happened steps from Samuel Seabury Playground, a popular gathering spot for neighborhood families, as well as the P.S. 77 Lower Lab School.

Said Menin, "To think that this incident happened in front of a school with a mother pushing her baby in a stroller is beyond comprehension."

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