Pregnant Woman Shot Dead in New York While Trying To Halt Dispute Between Ex and Boyfriend at Her Baby Shower

While attempting to break up a dispute between her ex and her new partner outside of her baby shower on Sunday, a pregnant woman was shot and killed.

According to the New York Police Department, Shanice Young, 31, was shot in the head outside of West 128th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem at approximately 1:15 a.m. Young was discovered unconscious with a gunshot wound to the head when authorities arrived on the scene.

Pregnant woman's ex and partner fight that led to her death

Police said one of the guys involved in the altercation was the woman's ex-boyfriend, who was not invited to the party. Young sought to intervene between her boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend to prevent them from fighting, witnesses told The New York Daily News.

The pregnant woman sought to mediate as the chase returned to the street. She was shot at some point during the battle. Witnesses stated that after Young was shot, the gunman fled. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, but she was pronounced dead. The culprit has yet to be apprehended, as per The Independent.

Young's friend, who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation from the gunman, described her as a generous woman. Young moved into the building a year ago to care for her sibling and her mother, who had been stricken with cancer, according to her friends. She stayed when her mother died to raise her younger sibling and children.

New York crimes on the rise

The latest incident occurs amid a spike in gun violence in New York this year. The number of shootings increased by 3.8 percent year over year in 2021, with 1,086 occurrences compared to 1,046 in the same month the previous year.

Per Daily Mail, the number of gunshot victims has increased by 1.7 percent, from 1,283 in 2020 to 1,305 in 2019. Rape, felony assault, larceny, and car theft are all on the rise in the city this year compared to last. Felony assault cases have increased by 5.5 percent in the same period, with 770 additional instances.

Overall crime is decreasing, but it was on the rise in May, June, and July, resulting in a summer of high-profile events that led Mayor Bill de Blasio to blame the courts for not processing offenders quickly enough. Last month, at one of his daily remote news conferences, de Blasio announced that there were just 18 trial judgments in the five boroughs in the first half of 2021, compared to 405 in the same period in 2019.

During the first eight months of the year, state courts outside of New York City issued 118 trial verdicts. The mayor is "gaslighting" the public with his claim, said a representative for the judicial system.

The spokesman claimed that the court system has been fully operational since May, and chastised prosecutors and defense counsel for failing to be prepared to trial their cases. However, due to social distancing restrictions, only three trials may now be held in each county at the same time, compared to up to a dozen before the pandemic.