Police say that the man fatally shot by police in Times Square yesterday was using a MAC-10 semiautomatic pistol that jammed; Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, "We're lucky the weapon jammed." Raymond Martinez fired two shots before a plainclothes police sergeant shot him—there were 27 rounds left in the gun. He was also an aspiring rapper and had a song with the lyric, “I’m on a mission on Times Square wishin’ that a cop die before he reach me. I’ll look into that cop’s eye…before he duck caps."
The sergeant, identified as Christopher Newsom, was working in Midtown in the anticrime unit yesterday but usually works in the peddler unit. The NY Times reports, "He recognized the two men, who the police said were taking part in a street ruse using compact discs to hoodwink the gullible. Vendors would approach someone on the street, ask his or her name, write the name on a CD and demand $10." When Newsom asked for their tax stamp, Martinez went running to the Marriott Marquis on Broadway at West 46th.
The Daily News says he was "cornered in the covered breezeway of the 1,900-room Marriott Marquis Hotel. Martinez spun and fired two shots at Newsom, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, before his gun jammed, police said." Newsom, who police say had yelled, "Stop! Stop! Show me your hands!", fired four times, hitting Martinez with all of them (three entered his body, one grazed him). Even though he was wounded, Martinez was still clinging to his gun; a witness told the Post, "He was putting up a good little fight. Next thing you know, the guy's brother jumped on the back of the cops and was yelling at them, 'That's my brother! Get off my brother!'" Another witness told the News, "He was on the ground and he was still resisting."
Martinez died at the hospital. Police found the MAC 10 semiautomatic—which was stolen from Viriginia—at the scene and cards from gun shops on Martinez; on the back of one, he apparently wrote, "I just finished watching 'The Last Dragon.' I feel sorry for a cop if he think I'm getting into his paddy wagon."
The shooting, which took place at 11:15 a.m., was amid the hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Times Square. Tourists offered quotes like "It’s my first day in New York, so it makes very real what you see in the movie" (woman from Australia to the Times) as police pieced together the events from witnesses and surveillance video, which showed Newsom taking a "defensive" pose while firing.
Martinez's brother told the News, "I don't know what happened. My brother is gone. He was a good guy. He was not evil," while Martinez's mother said, "I want justice... That was my beloved son. I want to know why the cop didn't shoot him in the leg or something." (She did admit to WABC 7 that she didn't know why he had a gun in Times Square.) Police say Newsom followed procedures.
