Cops Monday fatally shot a suspect after he pointed his emptied gun at them and vowed never to be taken alive. The man, identified as Carl Lastorino, 45, of Brooklyn, is suspected of shooting the owner of a Brooklyn tire shop minutes before the confrontation with police. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
Cops Monday fatally shot a suspect after he pointed his emptied gun at them and vowed never to be taken alive, police said.
The man, identified as Carl Lastorino, 45, of Brooklyn, is suspected of shooting the owner of a Brooklyn tire shop minutes before the confrontation with police.
The violence began about 4:41 p.m. when Lastorino entered Peter’s Tire Services on Linden Blvd. in East New York and shot the owner, police said.
The shooter declared “Peter, this is for you,” as he fired multiple times, according to Paul Browne, the NYPD’s top spokesman.
The tire shop owner, a 49-year-old man from Bensonhurst, was hit in the right shoulder and right hand and taken to Brookdale University Hospital in stable condition.
The shooter fled the store on foot. He was entering a livery cab about two-and-a-half blocks from the tire shop on Flatlands Ave. near Louisiana Ave. when he was spotted by cops about ten minutes after the shooting, police said.
A 39-year-old sergeant and 23-year-old officer in a police van responding to the tire shop shooting pulled up behind the livery cab, a white Lincoln Town Car.
Lastorino, preparing to get in the cab, threw his jacket and a fully-loaded 38.-caliber handgun into the back seat, Browne said. Still in Lastorino’s hand was a second 38.-caliber handgun cops believe he used in the tire shop shooting.
“All that’s left in it is his shell casings,” Browne said of the second gun. “All the rounds had been fired. We think he may have mistakenly thrown the wrong gun in the car.”
The two cops approached the suspect, declaring, “Police, don’t move, drop the gun,” according to Browne.
But the suspect was defiant. “He points the gun at them and says, ‘You’re not taking me alive,'” Browne said.
The cops each fired once from about 20 feet away, both hitting him in the chest, police said. Lastorino was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital, but was dead on arrival.
The tire shop owner, whose full name was not released, has four prior arrests from the 1980s for armed bank robbery, reckless endangerment and drug charges, police said.
Cops had received a previous complaint that the tire shop was dealing in stolen auto parts, but investigators were unsure if that motivated the shooting inside.
