Two men will spend 50 years to life in prison for the 2017 cold-blooded killing of two innocent women in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the District Attorney’s office announced on Monday.
Nazir Saunders, 22, and Anthony Alexander, 19, were each handed the lengthy sentence by Brooklyn Supreme Court Evelyn Laporte on June 10.
According to the investigation, Saunders and Alexander opened fire into a crowd of people who were gathered in the courtyard of the Stuyvesant Gardens Houses — located at 750 Gates Avenue — in the Summer of 2017.
The gunmen fired a total of 10 bullets, striking 21-year-old Chynna Battle in the head and 29-year-old Shaqwanda Staley in the back, prosecutors said.
The shooters had been aiming at a specific target, who got away unharmed, according to investigators.
Police caught up with the killers and arrested them in South Carolina three months after the shooting, according to the District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, who called the senseless killing particularly brutal because both victims were mothers to young children.
“Two innocent women lost their lives and two young girls were robbed of their mothers when these defendants opened fire without regard for who might be harmed by their bullets,” said Eric Gonzalez.
The killers were sentenced to a minimum of 50 years in prison following their conviction of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon at a jury trial in May, according Gonzalez.
