By Sarina Trangle
A 40-year-old woman was fatally shot with her two children nearby in Ozone Park Saturday by a man believed to be her husband, the NYPD and neighbors said.
The Police Department said it received a call about 11 a.m. First responders were seen giving the victim CPR as she was taken out of a home on 104th Street near 101st Avenue. Officers said she was rushed to Jamaica Hospital and declared dead on arrival.
The NYPD said it has a 43-year-old man believed to be her husband in custody, but had not charged him with any crime as of 1:20 p.m.
Police identified the woman Saturday night as Jessica Canty.
Several passers-by said they did not hear the gunshots. One bullet struck the Jessica Canty in the abdomen and the other hit her stomach, police said.
However, crowds gathered on the corners of 104th Street and 101st Avenue to watch police as they interviewed a woman in a row of attached two-story houses and searched a black SUV on the taped-off block.
Many said they saw the couple’s two children crying hysterically as a neighbor led them to a bodega on 101st Avenue.
The shop owner, who asked to remain anonymous because of safety concerns, said a neighbor led the children into his store to get them away from the tumultuous environment and told him their father had shot their mother. Many in the community said the couple had a young girl, who appeared to be 6 or 7, and a boy, who was close to 8 or 9.
Another neighbor said she came into the shop to do an errand and stopped to try to comfort the children.
“They were saying, ‘My mommy just got shot. There’s blood all over the walls,’” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous. “They were very upset, the kids, extremely upset. Poor things.”
She said paramedics brought the children into an ambulance to care for them as police continued to investigate the shooting.
Officers were seen monitoring a car with a man believed to be a suspect parked on Pitkin Avenue near Centreville Street around noon.
City Department of Buildings records indicate Kevin Canty owned the home where police said the shooting occurred, and he was heralded as a police officer who assisted a man suffering from a heart attack in July 2012 on the NYPD’s Facebook page.
A woman who lived near Pitkin Avenue and Centreville Street, where police said they found the man in custody, said she called 9-1-1 because she and her husband spotted a man trying to break into their car.
“I told him to walk away,” she said. “He says he’s ‘trying to get in my car. This is my car.’”
She said he appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol because he dropped his money and cellphone and did not seem to care when she pointed it out.
“He was not in his normal state,” she said.
The woman said he began to walk away when police arrived, but officers handcuffed him and put him in the backseat of a police car.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-e260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
