#Target in NYC shooting near kids was parolee busted for gun charge

The man who police sources say was the intended target in the Bronx shooting that nearly killed two small children was a parolee set free after a weapons charge, The Post has learned.

The target, identified by sources as Hassan Wright, trampled a 13-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother as he was trying to dodge bullets from alleged gunman Michael Lopez. He was shot three times as the kids managed to avoid injury.

“He had no business being on the street,” a law enforcement source said of Wright.

Cops busted Wright, an alleged gang member, on Oct. 11, 2020, in front of the Castle Hill Houses in the Bronx after police said they saw him with pot out in the open. When they approached his green Acura, they allegedly found a semi-automatic pistol, according to sources and documents reviewed by The Post.

Wright, 24, was on parole at the time for a previous weapons possession conviction after being released from prison in 2019, according to sources.

Sources also said his rap sheet includes two arrests in 2014 on weapons possessions charges, and said he had also been arrested for shooting into a crowd in the Bronx in 2015.

In 2014, Wright was the target of a gang-related shooting in the same Bronx area where this month’s shocking incident of gun violence took place, according to the sources.

“In 2020 over 2019 we’re seeing a jump in violent crime among parolees (in the Bronx),” the law enforcement source said “The parolee involvement, in shootings and murder – as a victim or a perp –  is considerable.”

Lopez, a gangbanger with numerous arrests, was also on parole when he was arrested in a January 2020 knifepoint robbery, and then set free.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea and others demanded answers as to why he was not back in prison.

“I think the main question we should all be asking is how does an individual released to parole get arrested for knifepoint robbery and is walking around on the streets? And is that justice for those little kids?” the commissioner said Friday.

Details of Wright’s 2020 case on a charge of criminal possession of a weapon were not immediately available. The Bronx District Attorney’s Office didn’t return a request for comment Saturday night.

It was unclear whether he had an attorney and a phone number for him appeared to be disconnected Saturday.