A few inches was all that separated a bullet from a baby sleeping in the crib pictured here.
Reginald Moise, 20, had been hiding out at a gal pal’s apartment in Crown Heights after allegedly gunning down St. John’s University student Tiarah Poyau at the J’Ouvert festival early Monday when he drunkenly fired the round through his friend’s wall and into the residence next door.
“Just before 5 o’clock in the morning I was going to check on my son … a bullet came right through the wall right over his crib,” Nadir Bryan, 30, told The Post.
“There were two shots a few seconds apart. They went through three walls and stopped when they hit the bricks. My son was so exhausted he didn’t even flinch,” she said. “If he was in my arms or I was leaning over the crib — one of us or both of us would be dead right now.”
The distraught mother recalled how she had feared the worse after hearing the blasts.
“When the bullet came through the wall I was screaming! I couldn’t believe it. It was devastating,” Bryan said. “I wasn’t even thinking about myself, I was thinking about my son.”
After realizing that he was safe, Bryan said she embraced the boy.
“I just picked up my son and held him,” she said. “God forbid what could have happened to my baby that night.”
Bryan added that she agrees with people who say J’Ouvert should be shut down.
“It’s just getting to be too much,” Bryan said. “When [the shooting] happened, I text someone and said, ‘this is like a war zone down here.’ I want to get away from here.”
Moise was collared Tuesday for driving drunk before cops linked him to Poyau’s murder at the pre-West Indian Day Parade event on Monday.
The gun used in the killing, a Glock 9mm semiautomatic, was recovered at his girlfriend’s apartment, police said. Ballistics testing matched it to shells found at the scene.
Moise was visibly drunk when he arrived at his girlfriend’s apartment on Montgomery Street, where cops said he fired two rounds into the wall, including the one that slammed into Nadia Bryan’s unit.
The young man has been charged with second-degree murder and depraved indifference in connection to Poyau’s death.
The 22-year-old’s family started a GoFundMe page in her name on Wednesday — and they’ve already raised more than $8,000 of their $20,000 goal.
“My beautiful, amazing, sweet, intelligent and wonderful niece, Tiarah Poyau was taken away way too early,” her aunt wrote. “Her death is so unfair, unlogical and not right! This can’t be! Tiarah lost her life tragically as a result of gun violence. There are no words that will ever make this better or easier. Tiarah is leaving behind a huge void. Her family and friends are devastated…Unfortunately, we are forced to deal with the financial aspect of this tragedy. If you want and can support us to make it easier for us to be together and celebrate her, we’d really appreciate it.”
Poyau’s aunt went on to describe her as a “studious and determined young woman” that everyone loved.