Exotic dancer shot by a masked gunman in NYC as she walked home 

An exotic dancer was killed execution-style by a masked gunman near New York City’s Gramercy Park on Thursday as she was walking home. 

Imani Armstrong was walking home from the graveyard shift of her second job at an IHOP at around 5 a.m. local time when a suspect wearing a mask snuck up behind her and shot her in the back of the head at East 14th Street and Irving Place. 

“When I heard the shot, I was like, ‘Oh sh*t.’It was like one loud bang . . . I heard one shot and then silence,” said Maximillian Stebelsky, who lives nearby. 

“I never predicted something like this to happen, especially across the street from where I live.”

The motive for the murder remains unknown. However, authorities said that the shooting was not random and seemed to be planned. 

“The individual was targeted,” Chief of Department Kenneth Corey said Thursday. “We have a number of suspects that we’re looking at, but nothing we want to commit to right now. But I’m very comfortable saying it was not a random attack.”

Sources said that the shooter and a woman were seen fleeing the crime scene. However, the woman may have been a bystander that was running away from the shooting. 

Armstrong had been living through tough times. She had recently separated from her wife, moved out of her apartment, and lost her kids to foster care. She was attending anger management classes hoping to get her children back, sources told The New York Post. 

In January of this year, cops were called to a Queens apartment, where Armstrong and her partner had gotten into an argument that resulted in pushing and shoves. However, a coworker said that it didn't seem “like anything was on her mind” lately. 

“She was happy. She was greeting the customers and all that stuff,” one IHOP coworker told The Post of Armstrong’s final minutes.