Targeted for death
Shot gal’s home in gunman’s cross hairs
The Long Island house where a little girl was shot in the head as she stood in her own living room has been targeted by gunmen three times in the last two months, neighbors said.
The tragedy that was waiting to happen finally did on Friday, when 12yearold Dejah Joyner took a slug to the head at about 5 p.m. The bullet left her hospitalized in grave condition and a community desperate for answers as police vowed to find the shooter.
Alex Cruz lives across from the Joyners’ Dartmouth Street home and says it’s at least the third time someone has shot at the twofamily home in the last two months. The shots always come from the same car, and target a younger man who lives upstairs, said Cruz, who plans to move as soon as possible.
“It’s the same procedure . . . Every time they see this guy in front of the house, they come after him,” he told The Post.
Dejah’s parents told longtime Dartmouth Street resident James Greene, 86, about previous shootings aimed at their home.
“This is the first time it hit somebody,” Greene said.
The child, who is now in grave condition, “was a sweetheart,” the neighbor recalled.
“In the winter time she is the first to come over and help this senior shovel snow. She did it out of the goodness of her heart,” he said.
Cruz, 29, captured the shooting on surveillance video, and says the fated bullet flew just as the young man was entering the home.
“They miss him and hit the girl,” Cruz said. “He got on the floor. He tries to miss the bullet.”
Nassau Police did not respond to a message seeking comment on the earlier shootings.
At a Saturday morning news conference, acting Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter called Dejah’s shooting a “heinous criminal act . . . committed by a despicable human being.”
There is now a $75,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who shot the seventhgrader. The case is being “aggressively investigated,” Krumpter added.
Dejah’s parents were home at the time of the shooting but uninjured.
“The child was shot once in the brain and she is currently in grave condition and the family is with her at this time,” Krumpter said at a news conference Saturday.
“We will turn over every rock and we will find the person responsible for this and we will ar rest him and bring him to justice,” Krumpter vowed, “and we will dedicate whatever resources are needed to do so.”
Hempstead Village Mayor Wayne Hall begged the shooter to surrender to cops.
“I am asking our residents, you, or whoever’s done this . . . come forward and give yourself up,” he said.
Madeline Singas, acting Nassau County District Attorney, called the case “tragic and awful.”
“We need to stop gun violence in our community. We cannot sit idly by as 12yearold children are gunned down in their own living rooms,” she said, promising the case “will be solved.”
It’s not the first fatal shooting on Dartmouth Street. In 2013, 17yearold Dante Quinones was shot and killed a few houses away from the scene of Friday’s tragedy.