Two waive extradition in toddler’s shooting death

$PHOTOCREDIT_ON$Associated Press$PHOTOCREDIT_OFF$

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Two men arrested in northeastern Pennsylvania waived extradition Friday in connection with the weekend death of a New York City toddler shot in his stroller.

Daquan Breland, 23, and Daquan Wright, 19, were being transported back to New York after the extradition hearing, the Citizens’ Voice in Wilkes-Barre reported.

The men were taken into custody about 6 a.m. Friday at an apartment complex in Wilkes-Barre, said Martin Pane, U.S. marshal for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Authorities had been seeking the New York City men for questioning in Sunday’s death of 1-year-old Antiq Hennis in Brooklyn.

Authorities say the boy’s father was pushing him in a stroller while crossing a street in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn on Sunday evening when multiple shots were fired. The child was struck on the left side of his face and later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Police believe the child’s father, Anthony Hennis, 21, was the intended target, and the gunfire may have been gang-related.

Hennis had just picked up Antiq at the home of the baby’s mother, Cherise Miller, to take him to visit Hennis’ grandmother, police said. Hennis put the boy in the stroller and was pushing him across the street when four shots were fired, police said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the killing “a tragedy for (the child’s) family, for this community, for the entire city.”

Both men were arraigned as fugitives in Pennsylvania. Wright then waived extradition in Pennsylvania on a weapons charge and Breland on a parole violation, the newspaper reported.

The killing was at least the second case of a toddler being shot to death in a stroller this year. In March, a woman walking home from a post office in Brunswick, Ga., with her 13-month-old son was accosted by a gunman who demanded her purse and then shot her in the leg and fired a shot at the child in his stroller, killing him, authorities said.

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the motive for the shooting is still unclear.

Witnesses have said the men were standing in the street when Wright handed the gun to Breland, who they allege did the shooting. The gun has not been recovered.

Only the father was present with the baby at the time of the shooting. He has not cooperated in the investigation, according to Kelly.