Man to Be Charged in Police Killings
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The convicted felon accused of killing two detectives in East Flatbush will be arraigned on first-degree murder charges as soon as he is released from Brookdale Hospital, which could happen as early as today, officials said yesterday.
A spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, Jerry Schmetterer, said suspect Marlon Legere is unlikely to face the death penalty, which the Court of Appeals essentially struck down in June.
“The district attorney’s position right now is there is no viable death penalty in the state of New York,” said Mr. Schmetterer, who said Legere would face life without parole if convicted in the killings of Detectives Robert Parker, 43, and Patrick Rafferty, 39.
Michael Palladino, a spokesman for the Detective’s Endowment Association, said a life sentence is too soft for someone who kills a police officer.
“We need the death penalty to police the streets of New York,” Mr. Palladino said. “Maybe if the death penalty were still in effect, maybe [Legere] would have thought again before he would have pulled the trigger on not one, but two detectives. The death penalty is definitely a deterrent.”
The detectives were shot dead at 8:39 p.m. Friday as they responded to an ongoing domestic dispute between Legere and his mother. Legere, 29, was shot and wounded in the struggle with the detectives and may have used Parker’s own gun to kill them, police said. Legere was arrested after fleeing the scene in a vehicle that he carjacked at gunpoint.
The killings were an added blow to the department, which lost Detectives Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin in a gun buy-and-bust sting on Staten Island last year, and which on Saturday memorialized the 23 officers killed in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“In honoring our officers killed in the extraordinary attack on the World Trade Center three years ago, we are reminded by the deaths of Detective Robert Parker and Detective Patrick Rafferty that our police officers are prepared to give their lives in the day-to-day protection of the people of New York,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Parker knew Legere prior to the shooting because of a domestic incident involving the suspect’s mother. Legere’s mother reported him to police on May 12, and said that he had threatened her, broken a mirror in her bedroom, and demanded the keys to her Mazda.
Legere’s mother called police and told them that Legere was back in the neighborhood. Parker, a 22-year veteran, and Rafferty, a 15-year veteran, combed the area and couldn’t find him. Legere’s mother called again and said Legere had returned. The detectives went back to the neighborhood and found Legere sitting in his mother’s Mazda in front of his home, at 519 E. 49th St.
Parker and Rafferty approached Legere and ordered him out of the car. Legere refused, police said, and then Rafferty walked around the car. At that point, shots were fired, and both detectives were mortally wounded, police said.
Funeral arrangements for Rafferty are being handled by Chapey & Sons in East Islip, with viewings today and tomorrow. Funeral services are scheduled for Wednesday, 10:45 a.m. at St. Mary’s Church at 118 W. Main St. Funeral arrangements for Parker have not been finalized, police said.