This Monday, after the J’Ouvert festival in Brooklyn, 22-year-old Tiarah Poyau was heading home around 4AM with her friends when a man she did not know approached her and began dancing on her. She told the man, “Get off me,” and, in response, he pulled out a gun and shot her at close range, above her eye. 

Poyau was shot by Reginald Moise, a 20-year-old man who investigators believe was intoxicated at the time of the shooting. He has been charged preliminarily with second degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon, and reckless endangerment.

According to the New York Post, the young man admitted to friends before his arrest that he thought he had shot someone on the parade route, but also claimed that he did not know that his gun was loaded. After he shot Poyau, Moise went to his girlfriend’s house, where he had intended to stash the gun.

While there, he fired two rounds into a mirror and injured his hand. His neighbors called the police after one of the bullets entered their home.

Friends and family say that Poyau was a career-focused young woman, studying at St. John’s University, hoping to become an accountant. She had a love of traveling and is remembered fondly by friends and neighbors.

 

Photo Credits: Facebook