Cops have arrested three teenagers in connection with the shooting that killed a 34-year-old hero Brooklyn mom outside a school last week, police announced today.
Andrew Lopez, 18, was busted for allegedly shooting the gun from the roof at a crowd this past Friday at 2:30 p.m. that included a large gathering of parents and kids outside PS/IS 298 in Brownsville, police said.
VIDEO: RAY KELLY GIVES PRESS CONFERENCE ON SUSPECT’S ARREST
“He made statements that he fired his weapon from the rooftop,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said of Lopez in a briefing with reporters. “We believe that Andrew’s brother was involved in a fight on the street.”
The bullet struck Zurana Horton, a mother of 12, who later died from a gunshot wound to the chest.
Horton was hailed a hero after she grabbed her child and several others, shielding them from the barrage of gunfire.
Lopez told detectives the shooting was in retaliation for a dispute his younger brother Kristian Lopez had with someone else in the neighborhood, police said.
Sources said Lopez and his brother are members of a street gang called 8 Block.
Also arrested was Jonathan Carrasquillo, 18, and Kristian Lopez, 17.
Lopez and Carrasquillo have been charged with second-degree murder, felony assault, criminal possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment.
Kristian Lopez has been charged with criminal possession of a weapon for carrying a baseball bat in connection with the shooting incident.
The shooting injured a 31-year-old woman, who was struck in the arm and the chest and was later hospitalized. An 11-year-old girl, a sixth-grader at the school, was also injured with a graze wound on her cheek.
Horton leaves behind 12 children. She lost a 9-year-old daughter, Quranisha, to pneumonia in 2007.
Horton’s death caps an unthinkable triple tragedy for her mom, Denise Peace, one of whose sons was shot dead in a 1991 robbery and another slain last year.
Neighborhood residents reacted at news of the arrest by gathering around a makeshift memorial that had been erected shortly after the shooting near Horton’s home.
“I’m glad he was caught and I hope he gets what’s coming to him. And if it’s more than one person I hope they get what’s coming to them, because it’s not right,” said Mary Johnson, a friend of Horton’s outside of the victim’s mom’s home.