The man accused of firing the bullet that struck a 5-year-old boy in the head on his birthday on Monday was ordered held without bail in the Bronx on Wednesday as the child struggled to survive.
The prosecutors said the bullet had entered the boy’s brain, damaging three lobes.
The doctors at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center have operated on the boy, Jaheen Hunter, and removed bullet fragments but some remain, Assistant Bronx District Attorney Felicity Lung told Judge Julio Rodriguez of the Bronx Criminal Court.
“The doctors are not able to give us whether the child will live,” she said.
Ms. Lung asked that the suspect, Michael Quiles, 27, be held because of the recklessness of his actions.
Mr. Quiles had been paroled from jail in October after he was convicted of attempted kidnapping, Ms. Lung said.
“Within months he’s back out on the street and he has a gun on him,” Ms. Lung said. “He chose to shoot that gun when people are there.”
On Monday, Jaheen had been celebrating his birthday with his father, Charles Hunter, and was being walked to a waiting car in front of Mr. Hunter’s home on Washington Avenue near 167th Street in the…