The death of an 18-year-old woman shot in the head at a NYCHA complex in Hell’s Kitchen has been deemed a homicide, officials said Wednesday.
Detectives are now trying to determine if victim Kimberly Olmos was the victim of foul play or an accidental discharge from a firearm that the shooter ran off with, a police source said.
“She was in high school,” the victim’s father Richard Olmos told the Daily News in an exclusive interview. “She was going to the Dominican Republic for vacation on Nov. 14. She was really happy about it. She was so happy that she was counting days.”
Olmos was shot in a stairwell at NYCHA’s Harborview Terrace complex on W. 56th St. near Tenth Ave. at about 12:45 a.m. Sunday, cops said.
Detectives are working on a theory that she was with a friend as she descended the stairs. The friend was playing with the gun when it went off and hit the teen, if that theory is correct, and then ran off with the weapon, the police source said.
“I was concerned about the people she was hanging out with,” the victim’s father said. “We would tell her not to deal with this kind of people, but she is 18 years old. We cannot do much.”
Medics rushed Olmos to Mount Sinai West, where she died a short time later.
“Last Wednesday, she wanted some money, and I told her I am going to send her money to go to the Dominican Republic,” her father said. “She was so happy. I am surprised that all this happened.”
The victim’s parents are from the Dominican Republic, but she was born in New York.
Olmos lived in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx with her mother.
Following an autopsy, the city medical examiner’s office determined she died from a gunshot wound to the head. Her death has been deemed a homicide, an agency spokeswoman said.
Olmos was heading down the stairs in the NYCHA building when she was shot.
On Sunday night, the building stairwell was still splattered with blood, including a large pool on the second-floor landing.
“It started from the second floor coming down, so, like, three of the steps are littered with blood,” said a man cleaning up the crime scene Sunday. “It’s pretty bloody in there.”
Investigators are looking for witnesses who can help them figure out what happened.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
