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Mom of accused cop-killer says she regrets ever making 911 call

The mother of accused cop-killer Lashawn McNeil told The Post on Monday she wishes she never made the 911 call that led a pair of NYPD officers into a deadly ambush.

A weeping Shirley Sourzes said she is beside herself thinking about the parents of the two shot cops, slain rookie NYPD Officer Justin Rivera and critically wounded Finest Wilbert Mora.

“If I knew, I never would have made the phone call,” said the mom, whose plea to 911 about her mentally unstable son brought officers to the Harlem home Friday evening — when an armed McNeil allegedly opened fire on them without warning.

“I would never have called!” Sourzes said.

“I would like to say to Mr. and Mrs. [Rivera] that I am deeply sorry,” the mom said through tears. “I know that there is not words that I can express. Your pain. Your sorrow.

“Me and my family are not proud of my son taking of life.

Shirley Sourzes — the mother of accused cop-killer Lashawn McNeil — said she regrets calling the police on her son before he shot two officers. Gregory P. Mango
Sourzes said her son is mentally unstable and even thought he was God. Gregory P. Mango
McNeil shot the two officers responding to his mother’s Harlem home in an ambush.

“There is nothing I can say to heal your sorrow, but God is a comforter. … And I know that he sent your son to do his will,” she said, addressing Rivera’s parents. “I don’t understand it. It’s not fair. My heart goes out to you and your family.”

Sourzes spoke to The Post hours before her son died from wounds he sustained in Friday’s confrontation with cops. The family later declined comment on McNeil’s death.

Law enforcement sources have told The Post that McNeil, 47, was entrenched in anti-authority conspiracy theories and even thought he was God — a situation that his mother said Monday prompted her to try to push him to get mental help.

“I told him to submit himself to help,” she said. “At this point, his mental state was incapacitated. He thought he was God, and he wouldn’t submit himself to no one.”

Sources have said McNeil also was generally angry at his mom over such things as the fact that he was blind in his left eye.

But Sourzes scoffed at the claim she had anything to do with the eye being impaired.

A memorial at the 32nd Precinct for Rivera after he was shot and killed in Harlem. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Memorial bunting being put up at the 32nd Precinct for Rivera. Brigette Stelzer
Sourzes said she is “deeply sorry” to the family of slain officer Jason Rivera for her son’s actions.

“This happened years ago,” she told The Post. “He had a fixation on guns. At age 21, in Edgemere [in Queens], he had a shootout with the Regulators, they are a gang. He shot off a BB gun, and they beat him in the eye with a bottle.”

McNeil had been living in Baltimore, but his mother said she drove down to Maryland in November to bring him back to New York City.

According to a law-enforcement source, mother and son began arguing on the drive back to the Big Apple over McNeil’s mental state, his penchant for anti-government conspiracy theories and his affinity for guns.

But Sourzes needed McNeil to come up to help care for his older brother, Hakim, who she said suffered from “lymphoma of the brain” and recently underwent surgery.

Hakim was living in the Harlem apartment where the cops were shot.

Sourzes told police after Friday’s bloodshed that she did not know McNeil was armed with an illegally modified Glock .45-caliber handgun at the time. He also had a loaded AR-type weapon under his bed, law enforcement sources have said.

Cops said an armed McNeil burst out of a rear bedroom and ambushed the unsuspecting officers, continuing to shoot even after they were lying helplessly on the floor.

Officers from the 23rd Precinct in Manhattan light candles at NYPD Officer Wilbert Mora’s home on 112th Street in Manhattan on January 24, 2022. James Messerschmidt for NY Post
Wilbert Mora AP

Rivera, 22, who was married in October, was pronounced dead shortly after the shooting. Mora is still clinging to life. A third cop, rookie Sumit Sulan, shot McNeil.

A police source who saw police bodycam footage of the ambush called it “horrific.”

“It’s bad,” the source said. “They open that door, and he’s just standing there, and he shoots the first cop. Then he steps over him, and then he keeps shooting at him.”

The source said McNeil is then seen shooting the second officer as Sulan appears.

Mora, 27, was initially taken to Harlem Hospital Center, where he underwent two operations before he was moved to NYU Langone Medical Center late Sunday, authorities said.

“He’s a great guy,” said Luis Millan, the superintendent of Mora’s building in East Harlem, on Monday. “He’s a hard worker and a humble guy.

“I saw him Friday around 2 p.m. before he was going to work,” said Milan, who has known the wounded cop since he took a job at the building seven years ago. “That’s the day everything happened. He was just trying to do good for the community.

Viola Rivera, the mother of Officer Jason Rivera, mourning her son at Riverdale Funeral Home. Kevin C. Downs for The New York

“I spoke with his father on Saturday morning. His father broke down on me. The parents are heartbroken.”

Tenant Mirta Mangual, who has lived in the building for 35 years, said Mora and his family have lived there for at least five years.

“He is a beautiful boy,” she said. “He would always say ‘hi’ in the morning.

“Nobody knew he was a police officer,” Mangual added. “I think he wanted to keep that private. The family are beautiful people.”

Eight cops from the nearby 23rd Precinct showed up outside the building to add eight candles to a growing shrine for the wounded officer.

Survivors of the Shield, a nonprofit founded by three NYPD widows in 1989 to help the families of cops killed in the line of duty, is asking for contributions for Rivera’s family and his widow, Dominique.

Contributions can be made through this link or by mail at Survivors of the Shield, Church Street Station, PO Box 436, New York, NY 10008.

Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Joe Marino