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 March
14, 2003
Officials Provide Details of How 2 Detectives Were ShotBy ROBERT F. WORTH
The account of the shooting, which took place during what the police called a failed robbery, was provided to investigators by Jessie Jacobus, 17, who was sitting in the back seat next to the man accused of being the gunman, Ronell Wilson, 20, law enforcement officials said yesterday. The two men, the authorities have said, had planned to rob the two undercover detectives, who met with them while posing as gun buyers to purchase a Tec-9 pistol. Mr. Wilson was arraigned yesterday on first-degree murder charges in Criminal Court on Staten Island, hours after the police recovered a silver .44-caliber revolver with a wooden handle, which was believed to be the murder weapon. Acting on a tip, detectives found the gun in a first-floor closet at 76 Van Duzer Street, around the corner from the scene of the shooting. Seconds before the first shot was fired, Mr. Wilson said: "Give it up! Give it up!" according to Mr. Jacobus's account, one senior law enforcement official said. The demand, "is almost incomprehensible, because there appears to be almost no opportunity to give it up. It's just, `Give it up, give it up,' and bam, bam — almost immediately," the official said. Mr. Wilson, according to the account, first shot Detective Rodney J. Andrews, 34, who was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car, a law enforcement official said. He then shot the other detective, James V. Nemorin, 36, who was driving, the official said. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Jacobus then got out of the car and began to walk away, then returned and pulled the two detectives out of the car, the police said. Mr. Wilson took Detective Nemorin's gun, the police said, and the two men then stole the detectives' car and headed to the apartment of Omar Green, 19. Mr. Green had arranged the gun sale and lived nearby at 67 Warren Street in Tompkinsville, the police said. As they got out of the car, they were spotted by two rookie patrol officers. The officers grabbed Mr. Jacobus, but Mr. Wilson got away, the police said. Mr. Wilson left his bloody clothes and a gun at Mr. Green's apartment and fled to Brooklyn, officials said. The police later found that gun inside a wall behind an electrical switchplate, officials said. Mr. Wilson was arrested on Wednesday morning in Brooklyn. Kevin McKernan, a lawyer for Mr. Jacobus, declined to comment on the case last night. At the arraignment of Mr. Wilson on Staten Island yesterday, the courtroom was crowded with his friends and family and with colleagues, friends and supporters of the two dead detectives. Mr. Wilson could face the death penalty if convicted of the murder charges. Judge Alan Meyer of Criminal Court ordered Mr. Wilson to be held in protective custody, and denied a request from prosecutors that his phone conversations be monitored. Both prosecutors and a lawyer for Mr. Wilson had asked that he be held in protective custody, but for different reasons. Kelley Sharkey, a court-appointed lawyer for Mr. Wilson from the State Capital Defender Office, said it was necessary for his safety. But prosecutors feared that he might transmit threats to potential witnesses. That is also why they sought to have his phone calls monitored, said William L. Murphy, the Staten Island district attorney. As the charges were read, Mr. Wilson stood wearing a white jumpsuit, rocking back and forth gently on his heels. His mother and father and other family members sat in the third row of the gallery, two rows behind two undercover detectives who had worked with the dead men. Two women, Chikenya Collier of Brooklyn and Danae Pope of Staten Island, were arraigned yesterday on charges that they had hindered prosecution by helping two of the men charged in the killings escape. Both women were released without bail. Michael and Luciano Diaz, the brother and mother of Mitchell Diaz, one of the six men being held in connection with the killing, were arraigned on Wednesday on charges that they had helped Mr. Diaz to conceal two weapons. They were released yesterday, prosecutors said. After the arraignment, several undercover detectives who had worked with the two victims stood outside the courthouse in a cold rain and recalled their lives. "You have lunch with the guy every day, you have dinner with him," said one detective who worked with Detective Nemorin for three years and would not give his name. "Now all of a sudden he's gone, and for what?" Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said: "You cannot take a police officer's life in this city. If you do, we will find you."
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he
man accused of shooting and killing two undercover detectives in
a car on Staten Island on Monday night first ordered them to pull
over to the curb, then shot the one sitting in the front passenger
seat before pressing the gun against the driver's head and firing,
officials said yesterday.
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