A 9-year-old Brooklyn girl whose mother and two half-sisters were fatally shot by her father hid in a closet and cried to a 911 operator: ‘Dad came to my birthday and he shot people. ‘
The hit child’s ‘heartbreaking’ emergency call was placed amid the bloodshed that took place during the girl’s birthday party in Brownsville on Monday night, NYPD chief James Essig said.
“She just called 911, you know, if you can imagine, it’s horrible, the 911, and said, ‘Daddy came for my birthday, and he shot people,'” Essig said of the little girl.
‘And she cried and cried [that she] “had no gifts.” It was heartbreaking to hear that. We found her hidden in a closet, ” he said.
Police say the girl’s father, Joseph McCrimons, 46, killed her 45-year-old mother, Rasheeda Barzey, and two other Barzey daughters, Chloe Spears, 16, and Solei Spears, 20.
McCrimons, who was not the older girls’ father, then fatally shot himself in the head.
The girl, who is now left without one of the parents, “is definitely confused,” Barzey’s former brother-in-law, Hasley Derosena, told The Post.
“Today is her birthday,” he said of the child.
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A resident of an apartment under Barzey and her children in the Van Dyke homes in Sutter Avenue told The Post that Barzey and McCrimons had fought before: ‘It was really bad.
“[But] last night there were no words, no argument. Just ‘pop, pop’ and after the first doll she starts crying. Then there were three more, and there was silence, ‘said the neighbor.
“Dead silence.
“I thought, ‘Should I call 911?’ “But ‘No, you do not know what it was.’ Five seconds later the sirens come.
“I’m just so grateful the baby was in the closet.”
McCrimons and Barzey have been in a “very rocky” relationship for years, family members told authorities. Although the problems between the two were not enough for the police to intervene, Essig said.
A police officer embraces a community leader outside the building where a man shot dead the mother of his child and two of her daughters before turning the gun on himself, on Tuesday, April 6, 2021. (AP Photo / Mary Altaffer)
“There were no previous households between them,” he said.
The neighbor downstairs said she called police at the address years ago – after hearing a woman above her shout, “Help me!” The result was not clear, although the neighbor said oncoming officers were looking into the building at the time.
Derosena said the antics between Barzey and McCrimons ruined his relationship with his former sister-in-law.
“I did not support the relationship, and I always told her that I did not like it. That’s why she stopped talking to me,” he said.
Derosena added of McCrimons: ‘I know he was always a little off.
“He has a temper. He was not an abusive person. He had a mental illness. He was previously admitted to the hospital. He tried to kill himself, but nothing else. ‘
The former in-laws mourned the victims’ deaths.
“If he wanted to kill himself, fine, but why the girls?” Derosena said, adding: ‘I did not know he had a gun, but I knew he was capable of getting one in his hands.
“I knew he would be able to do such a thing to a guy, but not to the girls,” Derosena said, calling Barzey “a good mom … very caring.”
McCrimons was previously convicted of manslaughter in Nassau County, LI.
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He was 18 when he shot dead a local sanitation worker and father on Halloween night in 1993 – allegedly because he was angry, the victim broke off a fight he was watching. McCrimons served several years behind bars for the manslaughter.
The neighbor who lived under Barzey said the household above her looked peaceful until McCrimons would show up.
“The fights were not daily. … fight back and forth, beat, and then it’s over,” she said. “I could hear the wall slamming, her screaming and him screaming at her.
‘It was a cumulative thing that happened. “It was the first time I heard them in a long time.”
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