Police have identified the shotgun-toting suspect who opened fire on an off-duty NYPD cop at a Queens 7-Eleven as the officer and his parents were returning home from a Broadway show, police said Wednesday.
Michael Slack, 44, is being sought by authorities for the Friday night shooting targeting Officer Ivan Gomez, his father, 71, and his mother, 70, as they returned home from seeing “MJ,” the Michael Jackson musical playing in Times Square.
Cops released a photo of Slack and are asking the public’s help tracking him down. His last known address is in Snellville, Ga.
Gomez pulled his Jeep into the parking lot outside the 7-Eleven on Queens Blvd. near 43rd St. in Sunnyside and he and his father went inside to buy beer and other items — not knowing they had pulled next to Slack’s minivan, which had Georgia license plates.
Slack had been in the lot for about an hour before the shooting. Investigators suspect he was going to rob the store when Gomez and his parents pulled in.
When they returned, the cop’s father, Jaime Gomez, saw the barrel of a shotgun sticking out of the gray Toyota Sienna minivan and yelled out.
Slack opened fire, missing the mother, but the officer, who is assigned to the World Trade Center command, suffered minor injuries after being hit by broken glass.
“I think maybe the guy begins to shoot more,” the father told the Daily News. “The only thing I think it is to try to distract the guy so that no more shots to the car.”
“I got the beer and I throw it away in his window.”
The officer, not realizing his father was not fully in the Jeep, pulled away, the father stumbling to the ground as the gunman fled the scene. Gomez then returned and tended to his father.
“It’s something you don’t realize,” the father said. “It’s like a dream. Like it’s not me.”
The windows to Gomez’s Jeep were blown out but cops found no ballistic evidence at the scene, leading them to believe that the off-duty cop was hit with rock salt rounds, a high ranking NYPD source said.
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There is no evidence that Slack knew Gomez was a cop, the source said.
Slack’s Georgia license plate number is XGJ825.
Anyone with information about him is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.