The parolee accused of shooting a 16-month-old boy dead on a Brooklyn sidewalk allegedly thought he had gunned down the baby’s father and boasted to a pal, “I just shot that motherf—er!” The Post has learned.
“He was told, ‘No, you idiot, you shot the kid,’ ” a law-enforcement source said Friday night as the accused triggerman, Dequan Breland, 23, and his alleged accomplice were hauled in handcuffs back to Brooklyn from their hiding place at a housing complex in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Breland changed his tune once he learned the gunfire had hit little Antiq Hennis in his stroller at a Brownsville intersection on Sunday, the source said.
“He started to cry. He was very upset and worried,” the source said.
The boy’s dad, Anthony Hennis, 21, who is believed to have been the intended target, is a reputed Cripps gang member and has 25 arrests, many for drug offenses.
“Everybody’s afraid of the father and his family,” the source said.
Anthony is still not cooperating with the investigation, Police Comissioner Ray Kelly said Friday in announcing the two arrests.
At least one eyewitness has implicated Breland as the shooter and co-defendant Dequan Wright, 19, as having handed the gun to Breland moments before Breland allegedly fired at close range, leaving four .45-caliber shell casings, law-enforcement sources said.
The two were arrested after a multiagency, tri-state manhunt led authorities to the small eastern Pennsylvania city, where both men have ties. Breland is dating Wright’s sister, who lives in a complex near the one the two men were busted in, Kelly said.
“They left no stone unturned,” Kelly said of investigators from the US Marshals Service and the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, who joined detectives from the 73rd Precinct and Brooklyn North Homicide in tracking the pair.
Breland and Wright wore cuffs and leg shackles as they waived extradition before a magistrate in Wilkes-Barre last night.
“I don’t want them taking my pictures. I’m not with that,” Wright grumbled before journalists snapped his photo.
Breland is on parole for a 2011 armed assault in Cayuga County in upstate New York. Wright has an open arrest warrant from Brooklyn on charges of criminal weapons possession and has numerous sealed juvenile arrests, mainly for assault, sources said.
They are being held in lieu of $1 million bail and are expected to be arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court Saturday.