‘She was my princess’
Grandmother remembers B’klyn shoot vic
She came to Brooklyn for a birthday party, and now her family is planning for a Virginia funeral.
The heartbroken grandmother of Daijyonna Long recalled the Sunday night murder victim as a young woman destined for better things before she was shot five times in a Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment.
“She was my princess,” said Betty Long on Tuesday from her Virginia home. “She was my heart. Very intelligent, very talented ... Outgoing, bubbly.”
The 20-year-old college student was mortally wounded and seven others were injured at the Sunday night event where four gunmen opened fire in a spasm of violence apparently sparked by an earlier shooting at a “Sweet 16” party, cops said.
The gunfire erupted at a smaller after-party inside an apartment building, police sources said.
All four suspects remained on the run Tuesday, with no arrests made.
Long came up to Brooklyn specifically for her best friend’s daughter’s 3rd birthday and wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time, the friend said.
“She turns 3 next week,” said Shamyah Moody about her toddler. “I asked [Long] why she came up so early. I don’t even think she knew about the other party. I only wish she had stayed in Virginia.”
Police said Long was hit by five bullets as she tried to flee, taking three to her buttocks, one to her right thigh and another to her right foot. She was pronounced dead at Woodhull Medical Center.
A 16-year-old victim was shot five times by a pair of the gunmen, and police sources said the attackers were possibly targeting him when Long was killed. The teen was listed in critical condition.
Betty Long last saw her granddaughter around the young woman’s Sept. 18 birthday, when she gave her a new bumper for her car after the old one was damaged.
Daijyonna Long was a bit of an entrepreneur as well, working as a makeup artist and selling eyelashes, the grandmother recalled.
The victim knew nobody else in Brooklyn but her old friend from Virginia, and was not the type of person to create any problems, she added.
“She was a good girl,” said the grandmother. “Nothing in that kind of nature ... She was studying to be something to take care of kids.”