‘HORRIBLE TRAGEDY’
Shot roomie, thought pistol was BB gun: att’y
A Crown Heights teenager who shot and killed his roommate last month claims he did it by accident, his lawyer said in Brooklyn Criminal Court Tuesday.
Reynaldo Lewis is charged with manslaughter in the shooting of Hakeem Norman, 22, in their Pacific St. apartment in the early morning hours of May 29. Norman died two days later.
“The defendant started playing with the revolver, pointed it at the complainant and the revolver discharged, striking the complainant in the neck,” Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Wilfredo Cotto said at Lewis’ arraignment.
Lewis, 18, claims he went home with a friend who had a gun and he was fooling around with it when it went off.
“These kids had played with BB guns before and my client actually thought this was a BB gun. He didn’t realize this was a real gun,” said his lawyer Lorraine
Belostock. “This was just a horrible, horrible tragedy. The facts of this case, it’s almost like a movie.”
Belostock said Lewis called 911 for his mortally injured roommate before he left the crime scene.
While police were still at his apartment, Lewis called a neighbor, who handed the phone to a cop, prosecutors said.
Lewis allegedly told the officer he accidentally shot Norman and asked about his condition.
The cop advised Lewis to turn himself in, but the teen triggerman said “he had to take care of things and would surrender later,” Cotto told the court.
“It took him several days to realize this was even real,” said Belostock, who added that her remorseful client needs therapy, not Rikers Island, to recover.
The teenager told Belostock the whole situation is a “nightmare that he can’t wake up from.”
Lewis, who turned himself in Monday morning, was ordered held on $100,000 bail Tuesday.