The first alleged thug busted in a senseless fatal parka mugging is claiming all he did was supply the gun.
“I saw the guy shoot the kid,” Timothy Montalvo, 16, said of the January 4 fatal shooting of Raphael Ward in front of a church at 49 Columbia Street. Ward, who is also 16, resisted demands to relinquish the $600 parka, and paid with his life, cops say.
Speaking of the tragedy earlier today, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the actual shooter has been identified as Walter Rodriguez, 20, who is still being sought.
“This was a dispute, possible retaliation over jackets being stolen earlier that evening,” Kelly told reporters. “But we are looking for Walter Rodriguez, and Timothy Montalvo has been arrested for possession of the weapon. That is the allegation, that the victim may have been involved in the theft of a jacket.”
“I brought the gun, and I handed the gun to him before he shot him,” Montalvo has admitted to cops, according to a criminal complaint charging him with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Montalvo was one of four kids caught on video surveillance entering and then leaving a nearby grocery store just before the shooting. He is the first suspect charged.
He stood before Manhattan Criminal Judge Robert Mandelbaum in a far more down-market-looking bomber jacket than the expensive, fur-trimmed Marmot jacket that Ward died over.
“He is charged with murder, and he did give a confession in this case,” assistant district Shanda Strain said in asking successfully that the judge order Montalvo held without bail.
Montalvo is due back in court on Jan. 24, when he will learn if a grand jury has voted a murder indictment against him. His lawyer, Gary Sunden, declined comment.