Edition: U.S. / Global

After a Stray Shot: A Girl's Family Seeks Meaning in a Random Loss

Published: August 26, 1990

Daisy L. Rasberry lives as if suspended in time. She has not been to work for two months. Nor has she slept a full night since the evening of June 23, when a Saturday shopping trip with two of her daughters ended with her 10-year-old ''baby,'' Shaniqua, bleeding in her arms from a fatal gunshot wound to the chest.

The bullet was not meant for Shaniqua. She was killed when an argument between two men and three clerks at a jewelry store in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn spilled onto the sidewalk where she stood browsing for summer shoes with her mother, her 13-year-old sister, two of her mother's friends and their three children. Another child, an 8-year-old girl, was also shot but survived.

''I do accept it,'' Mrs. Rasberry, 30, said, ''but I can't believe it.''

Since the death of Shaniqua Brown, a third-grader from Far Rockaway, Queens, who was known for her warmth, good grades and funny faces, stray bullets have killed at least five more New York City children under the age of 16 and wounded at least another five. The shootings have led to plans to hire more than 1,000 police officers by next spring and calls for tougher gun-control laws.

But while such random violence appears to have become commonplace, its lingering impact on the victims' families, friends and communities is not.

Within Shaniqua's family - her mother, her stepfather, Larry Rasberry, two sisters, Carmalei, 13, and Shayisha, 12, and grandparents - there is anger at the police for not being there when the quarrel outside the jewelry store on Flatbush Avenue erupted into shots, and at the store employees for somehow letting the argument turn deadly.

Mrs. Rasberry said she was considering a lawsuit against both the Police Department and the jewelry store.

It is not rage, though, but numbness, that seems to envelop Shaniqua's family. During interviews, they hardly mention the fact that two men have been arrested in the case.

''It's a lot to deal with,'' Mr. Rasberry, 27, a truck driver and former air cargo specialist with the Air Force, said last week.

Mrs. Rasberry says she finds solace in talking to her minister, Charles Jones, at the Bethel Temple Church of God in Christ in Far Rockaway and in a Bible study group. But she still gropes for a meaning to her daughter's death. ''It's like paying for somebody else's sins.''

Shaniqua's sister Shayisha remembers her as ''the only one in the house that made us laugh.'' ''She'd make funny faces.'' Mr. Rasberry said his stepdaughter was also the only one who could make him ''move'' - go out for pizza, for example - after a hard day of work.

''I was always too tired but she had a way of getting me to do things,'' he said.

'Jarring Reality' for Students

At Public School 197 in Far Rockaway, where Shaniqua would have started fourth grade this September, a psychologist, a social worker and an educational evaluator were on hand the Monday after the shooting to help her classmates and other students deal with the news, the principal, George Giberti, said.

Most students, he said, had heard about the shooting by the time they arrived for classes and many were visibly upset.

''There was a jarring reality,'' he said. ''Children sometimes feel that they are immortal. They were now faced with a loss and there was an outpouring of emotion.''

Emotions ran strong too, in the neighborhood where the shooting took place, a bustling strip of stores and markets that is always crowded on Saturday afternoon.

Neighbors Cooperated With Police

The police said they were able to arrest the first of two men charged in Shaniqua's killing within 48 hours because the level of cooperation among residents and shopkeepers was unusually high. They provided leads and identified the first suspect, Jamal K. Coley, in a police lineup.

''Normally in a case like this nobody saw nothing,'' said Ed Boyar, the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case.

In a statement to the police, Mr. Coley, 22, who lives in Flatbush, said he had gone to the Taj Mahal Jewelry store to return a gold chain he had bought for several hundred dollars but which another jeweler told him was worth half what he had paid. Mr. Coley told the police that when he confronted the Taj Mahal's clerks, they denied having sold him the chain. He left the store, kicking the door on his way out, and returned a short while later with a neighbor, Brian Reid, 22.

Just as Mr. Coley and Mr. Reid went back to the Taj Mahal, Mrs. Rasberry and her friends, their children in tow, decided to shop for shoes. Feeling June's growing heat, they had gone to Flatbush Avenue to shop for cool clothes and sandals. Mrs. Rasberry often shopped in Brooklyn, somewhat of a trek from her Queens home, because ''it's so cheap out there for the kids.''

'It Was So Quick'

She recalled that the stores that evening ''were packed with kids.'' About 7:15 P.M. she, her daughters and her friends stopped by the window of Your Foot, next door to the Taj Mahal. Shaniqua fell for a pair of sandals in black, red and yellow.

The next thing she remembers is hearing someone yell ''Run!''

''It was so quick,'' she said. ''I didn't hear an argument.''

''All we did was bend down for one second and someone said, 'Run!' I went to grab my baby girl and the bullet hit her at the same time. I remember when she said 'Ow.' I said, 'Run, Shaniqua!' ''

Mrs. Rasberry said that she and her daughter ran inside the shoe store for safety, but that Shaniqua, grabbing her stomach, said, ''Mommy, I've already been shot.''

Fired a Single Bullet

Shaniqua died later that night at Kings County Hospital Center.

Mr. Coley has told the police that he fired a single shot into the air after he and Mr. Reid argued with a shoe store clerk they believed ''was with'' the jewelry store workers. The police say that is the shot that killed Shaniqua.

Mr. Coley, arrested two days later at his girlfriend's apartment, has been indicted on charges of second-degree murder, attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.

Mr. Reid, who turned himself in to the police Aug. 6 and is also being held without bail, has been indicted and is scheduled for arraignment on the same charges tomorrow in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

Both men are unemployed and single, and both lived with their families in Flatbush.

Suspect Has a Son, 4

Mr. Coley, who dropped out of school after the 10th grade, is the father of a 4-year-old boy.

''He's very concerned about the charges against him, but he and I agree that whatever happened was certainly very tragic,'' Mr. Coley's lawyer, Michael F. Baum, said.

Because killings like that of Shaniqua are so random and unexpected, psychiatrists say, they provoke more shock and fear than other types of violence, and are more difficult to accept.

And because the frequency of such killings has reached new levels, -they are extremely disorienting, said Lawrence W. Sherman, a professor of criminology at the University of Maryland who has researched bystander shootings and reactions to them.

'Completely Terrorizing Event'

''It's not something your parents have told you about,'' he said. ''It's not something your friends have experienced. To have a stray bullet come out of nowhere for reasons that have nothing to do with the kind of life you've led, it's a completely terrorizing event.''

Since Shaniqua's shooting, Toufik Kassab, owner of both the Taj Mahal and Your Foot, has hired security guards at both stores. The owner, who was not present during the shooting, said that his employees had called the police at least twice about the argument but that there was no response.

Come September, Mrs. Rasberry said, she may be ready to return to her job as a part-time office clerk in the highway permits division of the city's Department of Transportation, ''just to keep my mind occupied.''

Also in September, when classes resume at P.S. 197, the school plans a food drive, Mr. Giberti said. Donations will be sent to Bethel Temple Church of God in Christ in Shaniqua's name.

Photos: Ten-year-old Shaniqua Brown was killed by a stray bullet during a shooting on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn on June 23; Daisy L. Rasberry, Shaniqua's mother, says she is still groping for a meaning in her daughter's death. ''I do accept it,'' she said, ''but I can't believe it.'' At right was another daughter, Shayisha. (Jim Estrin for The New York Times) (pg. 42)