Police recovered this .22-caliber revolver at the scene. (DCPI)
Two cops fired a staggering 84 rounds at a thug who had just murdered his sleeping 13-year-old sister and shot their mom in the head in a Manhattan apartment — but the maniac amazingly survived the furious fusillade.
“That’s my son! That’s the animal who shot me and killed my daughter!” moaned Christine Fryar, 44, from her bed in Harlem Hospital when cops showed her a photo of accused gunman Steven Murray, sources said.
The deadbeat son Murray, 28, at that same hospital was treated for 14 bullet wounds suffered after he fired a shot at cops and ignored repeated orders to drop his .22-caliber “Saturday Night Special” pistol, police said.
“He would not go down,” said a stunned law-enforcement source, describing how Murray stood along 155th Street in Harlem as the two cops shot at him from 70 feet away, reloaded their pistols once with 15-round magazines, fired again, then reloaded a second time.
“He still had the gun in his hand, he wouldn’t obey orders. He was pointing [the gun] at the cops and he wouldn’t respond,” the source said.
“After he finally went down he still had the gun in his hand and he was still moving.”
Murray — who has a long arrest record and two prior busts for assaulting cops — recently moved back from North Carolina to live with his mom Christina and his half-sister Annie Fryar in their one-bedroom apartment in the Polo Ground Houses in upper Harlem, police said.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said friction soon developed between Christine Fryar and his son because he wasn’t working or contributing to the upkeep of the cramped home, where he shared the sofa bed in the living room with Annie. Murray also was becoming disruptive and Fryar wanted him to move out, Browne said.
On Monday, Annie uncharacteristically was absent from nearby PS 46 Arthur Tappan School, but later spent time outdoors at the Polo Grounds Houses with her friend, Donette Skinner, a sixth-grader at the same school.
“We were hanging out together, and she said she had to go upstairs because her brother was getting drunk, and her mom and her brother were arguing,” said Donnette.
At 2 a.m. today, Murray and Fryar argued in the apartment, according to Browne. The mom then went to bed.
About an hour later, Browne said, Fryar hear a loud “pop” and emerged from her bedroom to encounter Murray — who began firing a .22-caliber revolver at her, hitting Fryar twice in the hand and once in her head.
“I heard pop, pop, pop. It was so loud I thought it was in my apartment,” said Fryar’s upstairs neighbor today. “I heard a woman say, ‘You shot my daughter!’ And she started crying.”
Fryar then fled to her room, where she phoned her husband, who lives in The Bronx, and her sister.
“I’ve been shot, and I think Annie’s dead!” Fryar told them, according to Browne.
Fryar then left her room and saw Murray in the hallway — where he was reloading his revolver, police said. She again retreated to her bedroom, and held the door against Murray as he tried to kick it open.
Murray then fled the apartment, according to Browne.
When 32nd Precinct cops arrived after receiving multiple 911 calls, then found a bleeding Fryar and Annie dead on the sofa bed, faced-down with two bullet wounds to the right side of her head.
Coincidentally, two cops from the neighboring 30th Precinct were investigating another reported shooting about 10 blocks away when they heard the report of the Fryar shooting, and sped to the scene.
The sergeant and officer soon spotted Murray, carrying his gun, lurking near the southbound off ramp of the Harlem River Drive, at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue, police said.
The cops used their PA speaker on their cruiser to order him, “ Stop, drop the gun,” repeatedly, according to Browne.
Murray, who was about 70 feet away, then turned and fired a single shot, which hit the police cruiser, Brown said.
The two cops then opened fire at him — and continued firing as he failed to fall to the ground.
The officer fired 45 shots in all — leaving just one round in the third 15-round magazine that he used during the confrontation. He later reported that he thought he was out of ammo.
The sergeant fired 39 shots — with eight final shots coming from his magazine, Browne said.
Murray eventually crumpled to the ground from his wounds, but the cops said he was still pointing the gun at them. That small .22-caliber Röhm Sontheim Brenz gun had four live rounds in its six-shot cylinder, police said.
Additional reporting by Joe Mollica, Yoav Gonen, Kevin Sheehan and Reuven Fenton