Heartbroken mom of teen daughter killed in car left with questions

By Johny Fernandez

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    ROSEDALE, Queens, New York (WABC) — The devastated mother of a teenager shot in the back and killed in Queens this weekend is speaking out.

Surrounded by loved ones on Monday, Karen O’Brian is mourning the loss of her 17-year-old daughter Shantasia, or Shanny as she’s known to loved ones.

“She was just being an innocent teenager, she didn’t even live to see her 18th birthday, her birthday was the next day,” O’Brians aid.

O’Brian said Shanny was a rising freshman who had just moved into the dorms at the College of Staten Island.

She was home for the weekend and was hanging out with friends last Friday when O’Brian received an unexpected phone call.

“When I answered the phone, I said ‘Shanny,’ the person on the other line, which was a boy, he said, ‘they shot Shannon, Shannon got shot at the park,'” O’Brian said.

Police said the teen was sitting in a car with two other people when she was shot in the back on 136th Avenue in Rosedale.

The details of her death are still unclear.

“I blame myself because I feel like I should have told her not to go,” O’Brian said.

Police say a 15-year-old boy has been charged with manslaughter in connection to the deadly shooting.

The family says they don’t know the people in the car and haven’t received much information from police.

“if you guys are just hanging out or going to the park, why you needed a gun, if you guys are good boys, and there’s nothing going on with you guys, why you needed a gun,” O’Brian said.

Now the family is trying to wrap their mind around a world without their loving teenager.

“I don’t know how I’m going to go through, I don’t know how we’re going to pick the pieces up, everything just stopped,” O’Brian said.

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