Bed-Stuy Moms' Killers Arrested Months After Shooting: NYPD

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — Police arrested two men they believe murdered a pair of innocent Bed-Stuy mothers at a barbecue this summer.

Alexander Anthony, 18, and Nazir “Stinky” Saunders, 20, were charged with murder for the deaths of Chynna Battle, 21, and Shaqwanda Staley, 29, who were both shot dead at a barbecue behind the Stuyvesant Garden Houses on July 12, said police.

Police have been hunting for the two men since August, when Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce identified them as suspects.

Police believe Saunders fired six rounds from a .45 caliber handgun and Alexander shot a .38 caliber gun twice at the crowd hanging out in the courtyard behind 760 Gates Ave.

The shooters failed to hit their target — which police believe was to have been retaliation for another shooting — and killed the two young mothers instead, said Boyce.

Battle, the mother of a three-year-old daughter named Amelia, was remembered as a “contagiously heartwarming, ambitious, generous, talented and a devoted mother," at her funeralin July.

Battle’s step-mother Sandra Burton said of the young woman’s killers, “I have no forgiveness in my heart for you.”

The two men are expected to be arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Friday.

Photo by Kathleen Culliton