Teen sisters pulled from Coney Island waters die: NYPD
Two sisters pulled under the waves off Coney Island have died, police said Saturday.
Aisha, 18, and Zainab Mohammed, 17, were seen struggling in the water near the Riegelmann Boardwalk shortly after 8 p.m. Friday. The NYPD and the FDNY both responded and found the pair in the water at about 9:30 p.m.
They were rushed to Coney Island Hospital, where they died, cops said.
Reports of a good Samaritan who rushed into the ocean to save the girls and then went missing were unfounded, an NYPD spokesman said, adding that no other victims were being sought.
Swimming is prohibited on Coney Island Beach after 6 p.m. when lifeguards go off duty.
Friday’s tragedy comes after Elyjha Chandler, 16, and Christian Perkins, 17, vanished in the waters off Jacob Riis Park in Queens on June 21.
Search parties scoured the waters off the coast of The People’s Beach for more than a week, covering more than 600 square miles as the victims’ families held out hope they would be found alive.
Their bodies were recovered from the water about eight days later. On July 3 the city’s medical examiner officially identified both bodies as the missing boys.
The city has suffered a chronic shortage of lifeguards since the outbreak of COVID in 2020. Last week, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards called on the city to train and hire more life guards in the wake of the teens’ deaths.
