The woman who was shot in the head near Union Square was walking home from work when she died.
A 25-year-old woman was fatally shot in the head on a street corner near bustling Union Square and NYU dorms in New York City‘s East Village early Thursday morning, according to authorities.
She had been coming home from work at IHOP in Gramercy Park when a man opened fire, striking her.
Police responding to a 911 call at approximately 5am found the victim unconscious with a bullet to her head.
EMS responders were called and arrived on the scene, where they pronounced the woman dead.
Police are describing the gunman as a ‘heavyset’ black man who wore a mask and all- black clothing.
The woman’s body was seen being loaded into a gurney, wrapped tightly in a black body bag and tightened with straps
Investigators also said that they were also seeking a woman, though did not immediately provide a description or information about her connection to the crime.
A white, bloodstained sheet could be seen covering her body on Thursday morning as NYPD detectives spoke to each other at the scene.
The woman, whose name was not immediately released pending notification of her family, was killed at the corner of East 14th Street and Irving Place, officials said.
Later in the morning, an NYPD Crime Scene Unit tent was erected to shield the body from onlookers.
A street vendor named Manny told the New York Post he was ‘cooking’ when he ‘heard a loud boom.’
‘I said: “Oh s**t, what was that?” I thought it was a car or truck [that] crashed. I ran outside and I saw the lady on the sidewalk,’ he told the New York Post.
He claimed there was ‘any commotion’ prior to the shooting.
The murder occurred on Irving Place, startlingly close to some bustling hubs of NYC’s East Village, including NYU’s University Hall dorms and Union Square, which has one of the busiest subway stations in the city
Other police officers collected evidence around the crime scene, including this bullet casing being placed into a clear evidence bag
Detectives stand at the scene and discuss the crime as the situation is still under investigation
A white sheet covered the victim, but eventually the sheet became bloody from the fatal head wound
It is the second killing in New York’s 13th precinct in two days, as Jamal Burton, a 38-year-old man from East New York, was stabbed to death near Chelsea.
Burton reportedly got into an argument with his killer which turned into an altercation, leading to the other man stabbing Burton in the chest repeatedly, killing him.
While shootings and murders have dipped slightly, major crime in NYC has surged 36% over last year.
Rapes increased 10 percent, from 892 to 989, and felonious assaults were up 19.5 percent, from 13,086 to 15,640, statistics from the NYPD show.
‘It’s a shame,’ Manny told the Post. ‘You have these people killing one another. They kill somebody and the system lets them back out. They are right back on the streets and they do the same s**t again.
‘It’s crazy. You got some sick, screwed-up people out here.’