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Mom Recalls Last Moments With Baby Killed in Brownsville

By  Seth Maxon and Aidan Gardiner | September 3, 2013 2:14pm | Updated on September 3, 2013 2:50pm

 Cherise Miller said her son was jumping on a bed and laughing moments before he was shot in Brownsville.
Mother Recalls Moment Before Her Baby Was Killed
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BROOkLYN — The distraught mother of a 16-month-old who was shot and killed in Brownsville Sunday said some of the baby's last moments were spent laughing and hopping on a bed.

In a tearful interview near her home on Riverdale Avenue Tuesday, Cherise Miller said that on Sunday evening she found her boy, Antiq Hennis, bouncing happily on a bed.

"He's jumping on the bed," Miller said. "I was just sitting there. I didn't yell at him. I just sat and watched him."

The boy's father, 21-year-old Anthony Hennis, picked him up shortly afterward.

"Then they were headed to his grandmother's house, three blocks away, and I never saw him [again]," Miller said.

Anthony Hennis was pushing Antiq in a stroller along Bristol Street when they came to Livonia Avenue about 7:15 p.m. and a gunman fired four shots at them, police said.

A .45-caliber bullet, which cops believe was aimed at Hennis, pierced the left side of Antiq's skull, and two others passed through his stroller, police said.

Miller said a neighbor told her about the shooting so she ran over to the scene, she told ABC News.

"I couldn't look at the stroller," she told the television station. "The ambulance came and that was it. I got in the ambulance. My son was breathing. And I just saw the blood coming out. There was a lot of blood."

Antiq was rushed to Brookdale Hospital and pronounced dead.

Cops were still hunting for Antiq's killer Tuesday and offered up $12,000 for information leading to his arrest.

Hennis, who cops said had been arrested numerous times on gun and drug-related charges, was not cooperating to help find his son's killer, police said. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters that officers hoped to speak to him on Tuesday.

But Miller said she didn't want to talk about Hennis.

"My baby's father, it's not his fault. It's just a lot. I don't know what to say right now. I just want to say thank you, and I wish my son was still here."