Distraught father of slain 11-year-old cries out in pain at memorial: ‘Who’s next?’
The inconsolable father of an 11-year-old girl who was gunned down by a stray bullet in the Bronx this week cried out in pain and anger at a memorial Wednesday — asking repeatedly, “Who’s next?”
“My baby’s dead, that’s what I gotta say,” Sokpini Tay said during a heart-wrenching outburst at the remembrance event outside the nail salon where young Kyhara Tay was killed Monday.
“Who’s next? Before we do anything, before we say anything, who’s next?” he shouted through tears. “My daughter would’ve said. If she knew who did it she would have talked, she would have found out who did it, she would’ve said something. That’s the person she is.
“Please God, don’t forget her. Please. She’s a baby,” he pleaded. “She wasn’t grown up yet. She didn’t have time to grow up. We’re never going to see her again.”
He also told the crowd of the emotional agony he was going through after the loss — and demanded justice be done to the as yet unidentified killer.
“Please, I’m going to be living in pain the rest of my life. I want that person to suffer in pain. I don’t want him to die. I want him to suffer. He needs to suffer,” the grieving dad said. “His parents need to feel this. My firstborn. My first. She’s supposed to be 12 in December. She couldn’t even make it. Now I’m going to have to celebrate her birthday without her.”
He also added: “My God failed me. God failed me. I hate him for that!”
Kyhara Tay was shot and mortally wounded outside New Kim Nails on Fox Street. Cops said she was hit in the stomach and stumbled into the salon, where she passed out. The girl was rushed to Lincoln Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
“She was right next to me when it happened,” her friend, Lillian Johnson, told The Post after the shooting. “She got shot and then she came into the store … like she was trying to get away from the gunshots. She was holding her stomach saying, ‘Ow!’”
Cops have offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunman, who remains on the loose on Wednesday, police said.
Footage released by police showed the intended victim duck into an assisted living facility on Fox Street before fleeing and being shot at by the alleged gunmen.
Tay’s heartbroken mother, Yahisha Gomez, dressed in black, and her father visited the scene of the fatal shooting on Tuesday, where a makeshift memorial has sprouted up.
Candles at the scene spell out her nickname — “KyKy” — and friends and neighbors have written messages for the slain youngsters.
“Fly high beautiful princess,” reads one message in Spanish.
On Wednesday morning the girl’s mom, still clad in black, ran her hand over a portrait of her young daughter at the memorial, then kissed the photo before both parents climbed inside an NYPD van to attend the press conference.
Among those who also paid their respects at the scene were dozens of the slain girl’s classmates as MS 424 also paid their respects on Tuesday.
The girl’s death is just the latest in a string of shootings in the Big Apple involving kids.
