Family grieves Brooklyn woman run down by driver in suspected love triangle fight

The young Brooklyn woman fatally run down during an argument over a suspected love triangle couldn’t help but show off her big heart for all to see, grieving relatives said Saturday as her mother begged for those responsible to surrender to police.

“I want them to turn themselves in and everybody to go to jail,” said Maria Serrano. “They killed my daughter, and I want them in jail.”

Shakira Serrano, 24, perished outside NYCHA’s Pink Houses in East New York on Thursday night under the wheels of a Mercury that may have been driven by a woman believed to be involved with her boyfriend, police sources and witnesses told the Daily News.

“She was a good, stand-up girl. She was very smart,” said the distraught mom, 73.

Shakira’s mother wondered Saturday about the whereabouts of the Mercury’s driver — and added that her daughter’s boyfriend, who was released after questioning, didn’t speak to the family when first responders rushed Shakira to Brookdale University Medical Center.

“The boyfriend hasn’t reached out to fill us in,” Maria Serrano said. “I thought we would see him at the hospital.”

Shakira was involved with her boyfriend for three or four years, her mom said — but the exact nature of the relationship wasn’t clear to her.

“She never really expressed her relationship,” the mom said. When the couple visited her home, Serrano said, “everything was smooth, I guess.”

Grisly video taken of the fatal strike shows Shakira Serrano, wearing a gray sweatshirt, arguing with her boyfriend as the driver of the Mercury made a U-turn in a parking lot off Loring Ave. near Autumn Ave. after an initial attempt to run her down.

Serrano dodged the car and ran over to her boyfriend as they continued to argue, the video shows.

As she pulled on her boyfriend’s shirt, he knocked her to the ground just as the Mercury turned and ran over her.

The car dragged her several feet to the sidewalk. Serrano disappeared under the vehicle for more than a second before the callous driver rolled on, the video shows.

Serrano’s 25th birthday would have been Wednesday. “We were going to have a birthday party,” said her mother. “We talked about it. We were going to get a cake and have a good time.”

“She liked to sing and dance,” Maria Serrano added.

Like many parents and children, Maria and her daughter went through a rough patch in their relationship. At the time of Shakira’s death, mom and daughter were taking the high road and patching things up.

“It was just miscommunication between us,” Maria Serrano said. “But we were working on it, and getting better.”

Cops questioned the boyfriend about his role in Serrano’s death on Thursday night, said police sources. He was released later Thursday after he asked for a lawyer and the questioning ended, said the sources. His name has not been released. Cops were still searching Saturday for the woman behind the Mercury’s wheel.

On the morning before she died, Serrano revealed new ink to her brother: a tasteful heart tattoo below her left eye.

“I done tatted my face,” Serrano wrote in a text to Derell Serrano. She attached a picture of the tattoo.

“U tweakin’!” the brother wrote back, expecting to continue the conversation at another time.

But that chat never came.

On Saturday, all Derell could think of was the little heart tattoo his sister had just gotten.

“[It was] the same day,” Derell said. “I got [the text] in the morning and she died later that day.

“Who thinks someone’s going to die?” he asked, stunned. “Especially my sister.”

Shakira’s neighbors at the Pink Houses were also mourning her loss. Some had put together a small memorial for the murdered woman outside her building.

“She was a nice girl,” said one neighbor, who wished not to be named. “She liked to have fun like most 20-something-year-olds do.”

Shakira’s death was a second massive blow to hit the Serrano family in the last six months. In August, Benjamin Rivers — the oldest of Maria Serrano’s children — died in a police shooting in upstate Niagara Falls.

Rivers, 53, was shot dead by cops after he was accused of opening fire on his girlfriend’s car, and refused to drop his weapon when cops arrived, according to reports.

“We’re still going through it, losing him,” Maria Serrano said.

“We had managed to take care of him,” Derell said of his brother’s funeral arrangements. “But God didn’t give us time before he went and took another.”

Relatives seeking to raise money for Shakira’s funeral have put together a GoFundMe page.

“We have two weeks to raise the money or she won’t be laid to rest,” Derell said. “And I’m putting my sister to rest.”