Teen brothers held without bail in shooting of off-duty NYPD housing cop
Two teen brothers with a raft of prior arrests were ordered held without bail Saturday in the shooting of an off-duty police officer who was attending a memorial service in West Harlem.
Paris Francis, 17, and Prince Francis, 16, of Manhattanville, were in Manhattan Criminal Court to face the music following their Thursday arrests.
Paris Francis is alleged to be the triggerman in the Feb. 5 shooting of veteran policer officer Robert Manley, prosecutors said.
Manley, an off-duty NYPD housing cop, was shot in the foot about 4:30 p.m. after he attended a memorial service for a community member at the Manhattanville Houses in West Harlem.
The Francis brothers were caught on video in the area of the shooting and the footage shows Paris, dressed in a black jacket with a Canada Goose logo on the left arm, with the gun, prosecutors said in court.
The two face attempted murder, assault and weapons possession charges.
Paris Francis has at least two prior arrests, including one for a Jan. 6 robbery in Manhattan, police sources said.
Prince Francis is a robbery recidivist whose rap sheet goes back to 2019 and includes at least four arrests, police sources said.
In October, he was arrested in Morningside Heights for allegedly firing a defaced .40-caliber pistol with a high-capacity magazine into a crowd, authorities said.
He was charged as a juvenile offender in that incident, which occurred in front of 1345 Amsterdam Ave. near Columbia University. The gunshots injured a 21-year-old who was hit in the left leg below the knee; the victim happened to be walking northbound on Amsterdam Avenue when the shots rang out, the police sources said.
Prince Francis was indicted in November in the incident, and released on bail with restrictions, which he never followed, prosecutors said.
Manley was wounded as he walked out of the housing complex’s community center and did not realize he was injured until he started helping on-duty officers find the shooters, according to officials.
A lawyer for Paris Francis, who wore a dark-colored hoodie and had his hands cuffed behind his back during the proceeding, asked for “reasonable” bail but the judge sided with the prosecutor who sought to have the teen remanded.
“I don’t get the impression they were aiming for the cop,” the defense attorney, Glenn Hardy, said outside court Saturday, adding “My client maintained his innocence and we intend to do a thorough investigation and at the end of the day my client believes in the justice system.”
