WRONG-PLACE NIGHTMARE
Slain mom not bodega killer’s target
The woman who was fatally shot with her dog inside a Brooklyn smoke shop was a mother of four — and police do not believe she was the intended target, officials said. Surveillance video shows the moment the lone gunman opened fire from the doorway of Salim Smoke Shop on DeKalb Avenue, striking Jennifer Ynoa, 36, and her 1-year-old pit bull, Blue, around 9:45 p.m. Sunday. Police believe a man in the store who can be seen eating from a bag of chips in the footage was likely the shooter’s intended target, an NYPD official said
Other footage from across the street shows Ynoa stumbling outside the store with the injured pooch behind her as she collapses on the sidewalk.
The suspected shooter was also caught on video arriving in front of the Bedford-Stuyvesant bodega in a red car and calmly crossing the street before squeezing off the shots. “He then gets in the car and drives away,” a police official told The Post. “The dog comes running out and collapses on the ground and then the lady comes out and collapses on the ground. 911 calls start coming in about shots fired.”
‘Terrible story’
Ynoa, a medical assistant who lived in NYCHA’s Lafayette Gardens about two blocks from the store near Franklin Avenue, was taken to the Brooklyn Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Blue also died at the scene, cops said. The footage from inside the store shows Ynoa standing with her dog and the man standing behind them, who runs further back into the shop when the gunfire erupts.
“They’re looking at, who was the guy in the back of the store, and was he the intended victim?” the official said, referring to investigators. “The lady seems to be unintended.”
“This is one of those terrible stories where you can’t even go to the corner store,” a police source added.
Ynoa lived with her boyfriend of four years, Carlton Busch, 46, and three of her children: two boys ages 16 and 11, and a 14year-old girl, Busch said. She also had a 19year-old daughter.
“She went to the store like she normally does,” Busch told The Post Monday. “She takes the dog for his late walk, and she comes back and probably sits there and reads her books and stuff, listens to music. She’s a homebody.”
Busch, who cried on and off as he spoke, said he struggled to understand the violence as his girlfriend and pet “weren’t a target for something.”
“It’s just a random thing, and God wills it and it happens like that. I just hope he brings justice. This could be anybody. I’m tired of hearing these things,” he said.
“I’m just empty,” he added. “I really don’t know. It hasn’t hit me yet. I’ve got these children right here, and they’re handling it like champs. They’re better than me.”