Bras are worn for support but a New York woman got a different type of backing from her garment during a potentially life-threatening event.
Daniesa Murdaugh was at “Old Timers” block party at the Brownsville Playground in Brooklyn on Saturday when gunmen fired into the crowd.
"We were on the basketball court” she recalled to New York Daily News. “When we turned back around to run, I heard two shots go off and then I was hit in my back.”
The experience was traumatic for the 21-year-old.
“I couldn’t breathe. Everybody was surrounding me. My heart was racing,” Murdaugh continued. “I was fainting, in and out of it. I couldn’t stand up. I was too scared to walk back out the entrance without the cops coming. I was scared. A lot of people were running. There was a lot of blood on the floor."
Thankfully, she wasn’t seriously hurt. Murdaugh’s bra absorbed the bullet’s impact.
“The thickness of the bra line, the bullet was caught there so when the EMS unsnapped her bra, the bullet fell off,” her mother Odessa Watson explained. “It was pretty much a graze of the skin.”
"They said basically my bra saved me,” Murdaugh said. “If my bra wasn't there, it would've went further into the skin."
Ten other people were injured by the gunfire and one man died, according to The New York Post. The shooters remain at-large. The New York Police Department believes two gunmen are responsible for the carnage. They also believe the incident is possibly gang related. Jason Pagan, the dead man, is a known member of the Bloods.
Members of the community are shaken by the disruption of a peaceful event. The block party has been a tradition since 1963 and there were more than 100 police officers present.
“There’s no part of street code that says you can shoot up an event where seniors are enjoying themselves, period,” said activist Jumaane Williams. “[This was] a revered event that our seniors come out to enjoy themselves. And, damn it, somebody shot it up.”
“For this individual to do something like this, it’s senseless. There’s no description for someone who does this,” said resident Dr. Burchell Marcus, who attends every year. “[The gunman] was waiting outside the event to see when he could get a shot at this guy. He must have had a vendetta against him, but it was premeditated.”
Murdaugh is also disappointed by the violence.
“What was that big that you had to put others’ lives in danger? Babies, pregnant people, old up-in-age people that was coming here to enjoy themselves — they couldn’t even do that," she said. “It’s sad. You can’t come outside and enjoy your day without thinking, ‘Oh somebody might have a gun. I’ve got to run.’”
Police Commissioner James O’Neill assured the community he would catch the assailants.
“It was not a good night in Brownsville,” O’Neill said on Sunday. “This is a great event, been going on a long time. I’m sure we’re going to figure out who did this and bring them to justice.”
