Qns. mom died from wild shot in bike theft try
The gunman who killed a Queens mother of three with a stray bullet through her bedroom window wasn’t even looking when he fired the fatal shot, prosecutors said Friday.
Issam Elabbar was trying to steal a bike on Sept. 30, and bizarrely “fired over his left shoulder behind him” when he couldn’t break it free, said prosecutors.
The shot hit Bertha Arriaga, 43, in the neck just as she peered out of her Jackson Heights room around 12:45 a.m. Her 14-yearold son rushed in to find his mortally wounded mom taking her last breath.
Elabbar, 31, was arrested three days later. He was indicted Thursday on murder, manslaughter, weapons and drug charges, and ordered held without bail.
“Inside your home, you expect to be safe,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. “But last month an innocent woman became the victim of a senseless act of gun violence while in her own home.”
Elabbar “swung his right arm around the front of his body” and fired behind him when he and another man couldn’t break the bike’s chain on 34th Ave. and 92nd St., prosecutors said.
Elabbar rode off on a scooter, but cops found him quickly thanks to the distinguishing cast on his leg.
His leg was still bandaged when police arrested him, from an injury he suffered before the shooting, police said.
Elabbar has been arrested four other times for nonviolent crimes: petty larceny, theft of services and drug possession, police sources said.
If convicted of murder, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison.