B’day boy fights for life — shoot susp collared
Boy has bullet in skull – susp ‘sorry’
THE STRAY bullet that hit a 5-year-old boy in the left side of his head on his birthday passed through his brain and is lodged in the back of his skull, sources said Tuesday.
Now the family of Jaheen Hunter, who was shot while walking with his dad on Monday, is praying for a miracle.
“He’s still very critical,” Gail Harris said as she rushed into New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia to visit her nephew. “He’s holding his own. Our family is hanging in there.”
Police said the bullet was fired by hulking ex-con Michael (White Boy) Quiles, 27, who apologized to the victim’s dad immediately after the Bronx shooting. The alleged shooter, who had one arm in a sling during the gunfire, knew the dad by name.
The dad screamed at the shooter.
“Sorry, Charlie,” the gunman said to the boy’s father, Charlie Hunter, according to police sources.
The gunman and two other men ran from the scene.
Cops and U.S. marshals arrested Quiles at his Washington Ave. apartment in Morrisania early Tuesday, just down the block from where little Jaheen was standing when gunfire rang out less than 24 hours earlier.
The birthday boy was walking out of his father’s building with his sister and their dad around 5 p.m. Monday when Quiles began arguing with a pair of men up the street.
Quiles pulled out a black handgun and opened fire — missing both of his targets, but striking Jaheen, police said.
Jaheen’s father, who a moment earlier was discussing what gifts his little boy had received for his birthday, tried to shield the child from the bullets.
Hunter bundled the youngster into his sister’s car and rushed him to nearby St. Barnabas Hospital.
Jaheen was later transferred to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where a small vigil was held Tuesday evening.
“My prayers are w/Jaheen Hunter, the 5 year-old Yonkers resident who is in critical condition due to yesterday’s shooting in the Bronx,” Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano tweeted.
The boy’s mother and sister live in the Westchester County city, according to his aunt.
“Absolutely heartbreaking. The city’s prayers are with him and the doctors working to save his life,” Mayor de Blasio tweeted late Monday.
Police say Jaheen’s suspected shooter has 16 prior arrests, mostly for drug and weapon possession charges.
He also served six years in prison after being convicted of attempted kidnapping in upstate Troy, officials said.
Quiles was one of four people who abducted a woman from Albany in 2010 and savagely assaulted her because her brother stole a safe belonging to one of the kidnappers, officials said.
He was released from prison in October 2016 and is on parole until 2021, according to court documents.
The bearded brute, who didn’t say a word as he was led handcuffed from the Bronx Detective Bureau, is being charged with attempted murder.
A snippet of surveillance video reviewed by the Daily News showed a man resembling Quiles sprinting away from the scene with a cast on his right arm and what appeared to be a gun shoved into the left pocket of his jacket.
A neighbor said Quiles has been wearing a cast on his right arm for weeks. The injury was the result of a beatdown delivered by a man upset that the ex-con hit on his teenage sister.
One of the men Quiles was allegedly aiming at was tight-lipped about what sparked the gunfire.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” the 59-year-old Bronx man told the Daily News.
Cops recovered five bullet casings at the scene.
Earlier Tuesday, investigators released a man who had been taken in for questioning the night before without charges.