Pregnant mother killed; her son, family members survive hail of gunfire in Berkeley drive-by shooting
BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) -- Berkeley police are searching for suspects and a motive after a young mother, pregnant with her second child, was killed in a brazen drive-by shooting as the victim's mother, young son and siblings all sat in the car with her.
It happened just after 7 p.m. on Prince Street near Ellis Wednesday night in South Berkeley.
Less than 24-hours after her 19-year-old daughter was gunned down in front of her in a drive-by shooting, Salima Wyrick stood holding her 10-month-old grandson Jah-hadi, surrounded by her surviving son and daughter after the family was caught in a hail of gunfire.
"They said 22 shots in her car," said Wyrick, still shaking from her family's ordeal and the loss of her oldest child, Sereinate Henderson. "I just need some answers. I just want to know who would want to take a precious, smart young lady from her family."
Two months pregnant, Henderson was driving with Wyrick next to her in the passenger seat and Henderson's baby son and teenage brother and sister in the back seat, when two cars suddenly boxed them in.
"It was a black car that pulled up behind us and a white car that pulled up on the side of us," explained Wyrick, "and the white car pulled up on the side of us and just opened up fire."
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Wyrick's 14-year-old son shielded baby Jah-hadi in the backseat, with his 15-year-old sister beside him.
Somehow, no one but Sereinate was struck. According to her family, she was shot once in the head and died a short time later at Oakland's Highland Hospital.
"These people never bothered nobody," said Todd Walker, a youth coach who is close with Sereinate family and also happens to work as a funeral director in the East Bay, where services for young people like her have been all too frequent.
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"Like now, you shoot innocent people right now," said Walker. "They're just shooting, because they don't feel like nobody care. They feel like nobody care, and that's sad."
"They didn't even care about her baby being in the car," said Henderson's grandmother Janice Marie Small. "We just want answers. She never bothered nobody. She never hurt anyone."
Berkeley police have released little information about Henderson's murder or the search for suspects. The department is asking anyone with information to contact their homicide division at (510) 981-5741.
