Cop shooting suspect tells extortion tale
Claims he had weapons due to threat vs. family
A South End fashion designer told investigators he was heavily armed Sunday for a bloodbath with extortionists threatening to kill his family when three plainclothes cops rolled up to ask about his double-parked Mercedes-Benz — and one wound up shot.
“By the grace of God, he only suffered a minor injury to his calf and is home recovering as we speak,” assistant Suffolk District Attorney Montez Hayward said yesterday of Youth Violence Strike Force Officer Patrick Curtin.
Requon Remy Martin, 21, told detectives he only realized his semiautomatic was pointed at police when he squeezed the trigger as his cousin, 35-year-old Antoine Mack, swung wide the door to his mother’s apartment after struggling with the three officers trying to push it open. The cousins retreated inside from the front stoop when the officers stepped out of an unmarked SUV.
The bizarre back-story to Sunday afternoon’s harrowing incident on West Springfield Street unfolded yesterday in a packed downtown courtroom through videos and witnesses. It did not save Martin and Mack from being ordered to remain held without bail by Municipal Court Judge Michael J. Coyne pending their indictments by a grand jury or an Oct. 22 probablecause hearing. The pair are facing multiple charges, including armed assault with intent to murder.
Police Detective Brian Ball, whose post-arrest interview with Martin was played for Coyne at the cousins’ dangerousness hearing, testified police are investigating Martin’s claim that anonymous extortionists began texting him last Thursday demanding $15,000 or he and his mother might be killed. “He said he had a violent mindset. He said he wanted to go on a rampage and then kill himself,” Ball said on the witness stand.
Martin suggested to police he was a target for haters because he was frequently in the company of “celebrities ... People see that and once they see that they try to set me up,” he said.
Martin also said that after “I shot once toward the door,” and Mack and his mother fled out a rear exit, he stashed the loaded Walther PK380 and Ruger LC9s handguns he’d just purchased illegally for $1,000 under his mattress before surrendering to SWAT officers after spotting “snipers” outside the building.
Statements Martin’s mother, Charmaine Williams, made to police Sunday were also played in court. Williams, 42, recounted how she’d moved to a hotel temporarily out of fear, but scolded her son for “hiding.” She encouraged him to stand up to their alleged tormentors and put an end to the threats.
“You’re hiding. Show them that you’re not a punk. Let them come to the house. Can you please end this now because I need to live,” Williams told police she counseled her son. “I just wanted it to stop.”
Curtin was shot in his left leg while trying to wedge the apartment door open with his foot.
Martin’s attorney, Edward Molari, who argued unsuccessfully to have his client released on $7,000 bail and confinement to his father’s home in Westboro, grumbled to Coyne, “If someone other than an officer did that, that would be called home invasion.”