According to police sources, the young mother who was fatally shot in the head while pushing her 3-month-old baby in a stroller on the Upper East Side planned to meet up with the child’s father that night and cops now want to question him.
Azsia Johnson, 20, texted family members that she planned to meet with her daughter’s father on Wednesday night to talk things out, according to a police source. According to relatives, he violently attacked her while she was pregnant, and she wasn’t sure just how she would want him to participate in their child’s life.
“Domestic violence is real,” Sandra Johnson, the victim’s aunt, told the Daily News. “Women have to know that. When a man beat you, that don’t mean love.”
It’s unclear whether the recent alleged assault was ever reported to police.
“It appears she was targeted, not a stray bullet,” a police source said of the shooting. “Close contact wound to the head. She had powder burns on her head, to show you how close he was.”
Johnson was residing at a shelter close to the shooting and had previously lived in Staten Island and Brooklyn, according to officials.
Ms Johnson’s mother, Lisa Desort, stated that her daughter was the victim of domestic violence at the hands of the father of the baby and that the relatives had filed numerous police reports – but that police had failed to protect her.
“The city was supposed to be protecting her. This is a domestic violence case from January. We called the precinct,” she said.
“All that anyone needs to know in this city is we called numerous times for her protection.
“No one protected my daughter, and now she’s dead.”
According to Ms Desort and law enforcement sources, the father of the three-month-old baby has been noted as a person of interest and is now being sought for questioned about Ms Johnson’s murder.
