Eric Adams offers own cash as reward to catch broad-daylight sidewalk shooter

Democratic mayoral frontrunner Eric Adams said Saturday he would personally donate $2,000 to help catch the brazen gunman who opened fire at a rival on a Bronx street, inches away from two terrified kids.“I am not going back to the days where our babies were waking up to gunshots and not alarm clocks,” Adams said at a press conference at the site of Thursday’s shooting on Sheridan Avenue near Mt. Eden Parkway. “So I am offering a personal reward to anyone who has information that would lead to apprehension and conviction of the individual who discharged those bullets at those babies. Because if he would do it to them, he would do it to your family members.”Adams, a former cop and current Brooklyn borough president, said his donation comes on top of the NYPD’s reward of $3,500. He would directly pay a tipster whose information leads to the arrest and conviction of the shooter, his campaign said.“This is New York. This is not a third world country that’s under some type of war-like zone,” said Adams, who is against efforts to defund the NYPD and wants to flood the subways with more cops.The two children, a 10-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother, miraculously escaped unharmed from the mayhem that began about 7 p.m. outside the Maria Pablito Deli & Grocery near their apartment building on Sheridan.

The kids went out to buy some candy with their parents when the gunman, wearing a black hoodie and black mask, began shooting at his target, who trampled the kids as he ran for his life. Yet the gunman kept shooting in a horrifying scene that stunned the city.“When I heard the shots, I ducked. Everybody went down,” said bystander Victor Adames, 46, who is seen in the clip rushing to comfort the cowering kids.“The kids were shaking. They were crying. I held both kids,” he said, putting both hands out. “I took them in the laundromat. The father was across the street. He ran and came and got them.”Neighbors said the family was from the Dominican Republic and the dad is a cab driver.A woman who works at the bodega said the kids came in daily to buy items, such as plantains, for their mom.Another witness said the gunman jumped off the back of a scooter and started shooting at the 24-year-old victim before getting back on and taking off.