A Harlem gangbanger who served two stints in prison was arrested Friday morning and charged in the brazen Bronx shooting that narrowly missed two young kids, police said.
Michael Lopez, 27, faces attempted murder and a slew of other charges for allegedly opening fire in broad daylight on June 17 — with his intended target trampling siblings Mia, 13, and Christian, 5, on the sidewalk as they headed to a bodega for candy. Miraculously, they were not struck by gunfire.
Video of the shooting became a viral depiction of the out-of-control gun violence in the Big Apple — including in The Bronx where at least six people were shot overnight, cops said Friday.
“That heart-wrenching video was seen around the world, and now, I fear that the catchphrase is that ‘The Bronx is bleeding,’ ” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said at an afternoon press conference at NYPD headquarters. “We are doing everything that we can, but we need to prevent things like this from happening.”
Lopez, who allegedly was carrying out a hit on a rival that day, is a member of the “Make It Happen Boyz” street gang and has been arrested five times before for robbery, attempted murder, conspiracy, weapons possession and unlawful disclosure of intimate images, sources said.
He was arrested at his stepfather’s house in Harlem, according to the NYPD.
Chief of Detectives James Essig said Lopez admitted to being the man in the photo taken from the shooting and gave conflicting accounts of where he was during the shooting.
Cops are still looking for an accomplice who helped Lopez get away on a scooter.
Lopez was released from prison in 2017 on an attempted assault conviction and served two years on parole, state records show. His supervised release was set to end in 2023, according to the records.
He also was convicted of criminal possession of a weapon in 2011 for pulling a gun on someone in Harlem, according to records and sources.
As cops walked Lopez out of the NYPD’s 44th Precinct station Friday afternoon, the gangbanger — wearing a white tank top tucked into his underwear, gym shorts and flip-flops with socks — stared straight ahead as reporters yelled questions.
News of the arrest in the high-profile case — which had mayoral front-runner Eric Adams offering $2,000 of his own money for information leading to a collar — comes as shootings continue to soar this year in the city.
Instances of gunplay have nearly doubled in 2021, compared to the same time last year, with over 100 more victims this year, according to NYPD data.
Lopez’s arrest came just hours after two men opened fire outside a graduation party in The Bronx — leaving five injured, including three teens, police said. The pair were denied entry to the party and returned in a car moments later, unleashing a hail of bullets outside the building in Unionport.
Another Bronx shooting late Thursday left a 27-year-old woman, believed to be an innocent bystander, with injuries at NYCHA’s Butler Houses in Claremont Village, cops said. She is expected to survive.
At an unrelated press conference, Adams decried the gun violence, saying the NYPD needs to do more to target “hotspots.”
“We’re not covering all the hotspots,” said Adams, a former NYPD captain. “Every hotspot that’s identified by the police department should be covered by on-the-ground resources.”
Adams vowed to push Mayor de Blasio to send more police to those high-crime areas.
Meanwhile, police made an arrest in a fatal shooting outside a Bronx church earlier this month.
Spencer Bridge was nabbed on charges of murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a firearm in the June 12 shooting that left Vaughn Flanders, 42, dead and an innocent 28-year-old woman injured in front of St. Anthony of Padua in Morrisania.
Police said the slaying was drug-related.
Additional reporting by Julia Marsh, Craig McCarthy and Len La Rocca