Tears for 3 vics
Pals mourn ma, daughters slain by ex-con
She was a hardworking mother of two, with a pair of incandescent young daughters eager to make the world a better place.
Rasheeda Barzey, 45, executed alongside her beloved kids by an ex-con boyfriend in a rage-fueled rampage, spent the last seven years as an administrative manager with the NYC Health + Hospitals, according to her LinkedIn page and devastated co-workers.
The devoted mom, along with her daughters aged 20 and 16, was killed late Monday night when her gun-toting boyfriend entered their Brooklyn apartment and opened fire. She started working for city hospitals in June 2014, when her beau was behind bars for a Westchester County bank robbery committed one year earlier.
“The news still doesn’t feel real,” heartbroken co-worker Isha Greaves wrote on Facebook, posting video clips of Barzey taking a moment at work to dance to reggae music. “I called your phone today to see if you would answer but you didn’t. I am going to miss my friend. I love you.”
Barzey previously worked as a secretary at Brookdale University Hospital, where she assisted doctors in the facility’s cardiology department.
She died alongside elder daughter Solei Spears, a Baruch College student, and high schooler Chloe Spears when Joseph McCrimon opened fire on the night of his daughter’s ninth birthday. The little girl, awakened by the gunfire, cowered in a closet during the four terrifying minutes of violence, police said.
Solei, who worked as an intern at the Brooklyn district attorney’s office in 2017, was a whip-smart political science major due to graduate next year. She served as the communications chairwoman for Baruch’s Black Student Union.
“She was literally the most gentle, sweet and beautiful person anyone could meet,” recalled friend Shakea Bobb, 21.
Solei traveled to Puerto Rico with classmates in July 2019 to help rebuild homes after a pair of hurricanes wreaked havoc on the island. One Instagram post remembered the slain student as “inspired by the ways that she can be of a greater purpose and impact with what and how she contributes to the world.”
Longtime friends of Chloe offered fond remembrances of the teen from Brooklyn’s Intermediate School 240, Magnet School of STEM, where the young fan of singer Beyoncé unfailingly appeared with a smile on her face.
“One of the sweetest people I’ve ever met,” said classmate Ashley Carter, 15. “She was always helping others and she was such a great friend. She was a kind soul . . . . She had such a bright future ahead of her and didn’t deserve to be taken so soon.”
Another friend recalled a bond dating back to when the two had just started school.
“You were one of my closest friends . . . . You were basically my sister since kindergarten,” the friend wrote. “I love you no matter what. Fly high, Sis.”
The surviving girl remained secluded with family members Wednesday, two days after her 46-year-old father arrived at their Brownsville apartment around 11:20 p.m.
McCrimon fled the apartment and fatally shot himself in the head outside another building in the Van Dyke Houses. When he was just 18, he was arrested for manslaughter for shooting a man to death on Long Island for breaking up a fight McCrimon wanted to watch. He served eight years in prison for that death.
A high-ranking police source said the little girl, the only one to escape with her life, used one of her slain sister’s cell phones to call police and was hugging a stuffed pink unicorn when cops found her amid the bodies.
“Daddy was coming over for my birthday and he shot them,” the 9-year-old wept in her brave 911 call.
Baruch College sent out a message of sympathy to Solei’s family and friends after the shocking death of the third-year student. And another friend, noting that Solei’s name means “sun,” recalled her as a ray of light to all in her orbit.
“I’ve watched her grow from this shy, quiet girl to an amazing young woman with a smile that could light up a room and a laugh that was contagious,” recalled Eve Baptiste, 21, a friend since they met in sixth grade. “Her soul was unmatched. She was so sweet and so smart.
“How could anyone not love her?”