I WAS TARGET: José Hernandez (above) yesterday testified that Lamont Pride beat him. (Photos: Gregory P. Mango)
(
)
He had murder on his mind.
The brutal thug on trial in the murder of a Brooklyn cop threatened to kill a small-time drug peddler he held up for cash and “bling-bling” during the botched robbery that led to the officer’s death, the dealer testified yesterday.
Lamont Pride, 28, is on trial for shooting decorated NYPD cop Peter Figoski in the face during the 2011 East New York robbery. Pride and another crook allegedly assaulted the dealer and brandished guns to force him to cough up his cash.
“They told me to give them the money and the drugs and the bling-bling,” pot dealer José Hernandez, 27, said through a translator.
“He said that after they got the money and the bling-bling they were going to kill me.”
Prosecutors previously said Pride racked his 9mm semiautomatic handgun when the carload of thugs parked outside the Pine Street apartment — further evidence the killer was prepared to use his gun.
Hernandez, who grinned and joked throughout his testimony, said he spent the evening at a friend’s home smoking pot and playing video games before returning home and passing out.
The dealer also testified that the masked Pride and the other crook, Kevin Santos, identified themselves as police when they first broke in.
Pride and Santos ransacked the apartment looking for his $1,000 in cash and the $800 in marijuana Hernandez kept in a small refrigerator in his bedroom. Pride hit Hernandez twice and he bled heavily while he lay on the floor, the dealer testified.
“After you were down on the ground and the black guy was standing on your hands, he hit you again?” asked Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Howard Jackson.
“Yes,” said Hernandez, who said he later received 12 stitches.
Hernandez testified that his attackers disappeared shortly before cops arrived — prosecutors say that’s when Pride and Santos hid in a boiler room — and that he heard a gunshot after the uniformed cops had arrived.
A criminalist for the medical examiner testified that Pride’s DNA was found on the gun used to kill Figoski.
“We were able to determine that Lamont Pride is the source of the sample taken from the handle,” Jaheida Perez testified. “We would expect to find this profile once in 150 planets of our size.”