A suspect angry he was barred from a Manhattan supportive housing residence has been arrested a week after shooting and wounding a security guard who works there, police said Wednesday.
Shaqueal Parker was nabbed in Upper Manhattan Tuesday and charged with attempted murder, assault, and weapon possession for the March 30 shooting down the block from Breaking Ground’s Prince George facility on E. 28th St. in NoMad, police said.
Parker, 31, is accused of opening fire at a Breaking Ground security guard who had helped enforce the ban keeping the suspect from visiting the facility located just a few blocks from Madison Square Park,
Before the shooting, Parker was seen outside the Prince George, arguing with the 49-year-old guard he targeted, witnesses said. In the past, he would ask tenants if he could crash in their apartments, even though facility rules forbade him from staying overnight, a tenant said.
“He used to stay with me,” the tenant, who wished not to be named, told the Daily News last week. “He broke up with his girl and I let him stay with me because he was in the street.”
It wasn’t the first time Parker has been arrested for attacking someone at that location, cops say.
At 2 a.m. on Aug. 27, 2024, Parker, who according to cops had a crack pipe in his pocket, allegedly flipped a bench a man was sitting on. The victim hit his head on the sidewalk, causing a cut. He was hospitalized in critical condition.
Parker was charged with assault and drug possession. The disposition of that case was not immediately clear Wednesday.
The suspect lives in NYCHA’s Douglass Houses on the Upper West Side, police said. His arraignment for the shooting was pending in Manhattan Criminal Court Wednesday.
The guard had stepped out to get lunch and was coming out of a Whole Foods down the block from the Prince George when he was shot multiple times.
The gunman, one witness said, opened fire “in broad daylight in front of 70 people.”
Medics rushed the victim to Bellevue Hospital, where he is still recovering.
Parker was restricted as a guest last June, meaning he was supposed to no longer be allowed to visit the building. Surveillance video provided to the NYPD by Breaking Ground helped police identify the suspect.
“He was restricted because he would jump around from apartment to apartment,” the tenant said. “If you visit another apartment, you’re supposed to go downstairs and register with the desk. He wasn’t doing that.”