The upper Manhattan mother of three killed by a stray bullet the day after Christmas was remembered by her family Tuesday as “generous and𒁏 kind” to a fauꦬlt.
Valeria Ortega, 64 — a resident of Inwood for the last three decades, who also leaves behind three grandkids and h🌊er 101-year-old mom — was shot in the head just blocks🦂 from her home on Monday morning while walking with her son to the supermarket.
“[She was] buenisima — a very good woman, a doting mother,” Vincente Garcia .
“[She was] generous꧒ and kind almost too much for her own☂ good.”
One of the slain woman’s nieces, Daliza Vasquez🍬, said her kindhearted aunt stayed home to care for her centenarian mother and an elder⛄ly neighbor.
“What can I say? 🌌What can one say?” Vasquez, 25, told The Post. “This wasn’t something you expected. She went to the supermarket and she was shot in the head when she was someone innocent.”
A memorial with yellow flowers and candles stood outside the family’s apartm💧ent building Tuesday.
Heartbreaking photos on her Facebook page showed Ortꦐega, who had two adult daughters in addition to a son in his late 20s, enjo🎀ying vacations and doting on her family.
Her last pu൲blic post in September celebrated her mother’s 101st birthday.
“Congratulations on your birthday mom,” Ortega wrote alongside a photo of her elderly mother posing with pink 🍌balloons.
Police said Tuesday that Ortega🎉 was an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire during a conflict between two moped drivers and an individual in a dark four-door sedan.
“[The individual] in the car f🗹ired in the direction of the mopeds,” an NYPD spokesperso༒n said. “No one else was struck.”
The two mꦚoped drivers were last seen fleeing south following the tragedy at around 11:31 a.m. near Dyckman Street🀅 and Vermilyea Avenue. No arrests have been made.
“[Ortega] had already fallen to the ground,” Edgar Garcia, a clerk at the nearby GNC store, told The Post shortly after thღe shooting. “I just saw her lying there while blood was leaking . . . She was laying face-flat near her cart and I just saw the blood splattered.”
Ortega was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where she was๊ declared ꧙dead.
He🦄r blood-spattered scarf remained on the sidewalk for several hours.
“Oh, my God,” her husband said as he wept on the street near where his wif🌟e was struck down. “My son, he said, ‘Look at my mother’ . . . My child told me, ‘Look at my mother.’ ”
Another of h🍬er grieving nieces, Erundina Vasquez🍎, 50, slammed “delinquents” for taking her aunt’s life.
“Today it happened to us, but tomorrow it can happ🌌en to another innocent family that has nothing to do with delinquency,” she told The Post on Tuesday.
“There are no words to say anything, only ask God that no one else goes through what 🐓we’re going through,” Vasquez said. “Because they’re going to continue doing this, the delinquents.”
Asked 🎃if she had a message for city officials on rampant crime in the Big Apple, she said only,🦋 “Nothing is going to bring our aunt back.”
Her cousin, Rosa Ortega, said she was with another relative who received a phone alert about the shooting ꦅbut had no idea who the victim was — until she got a call at home later.
“It hurts a lot. I never thought i🅺n my life it was my cousin. Never. It’s as if someone threw cold water on you,” Ortega said.
“I don’t know what’s happening in this country, because if you go out you don🍷’t know if you’re coming home,” she added.𒀰 “You’re not comfortable going out because you don’t know what can happen to you. It’s very sad.”
In a heart-wrenching post on Facebook, Ortega added in Spanish, “I never knew what it would feel lಞike to lose a family member. It’s like you’re having a nightmare and you hope at any moment you will wake up a💞nd everything was a lie.
“I𒀰t’s horrible,” she wrote. “The way my aunt has died doesn’t let me sleep. Why did it have to be this way? Why? 🌳You don’t deserve it, not like that, and I don’t accept it.”
S♋he added that her cousin’s mur𒈔der has “marred my Christmas forever.”
Additional reporting by Tomas Gaston
