The suspect in Friday’s hit-and-run killing of a 4-year-old boy on Staten Island had wrecked a rental car last month just blocks away, The Post has learned.
On July 1, John Sanjurjo claimed he had wiped out on Slater Boulevard while trying to avoid hitting a cat, according to an NYPD report.
Sanjurjo, 33, is now being eyed in the horrific mowdown of little Kyrillos Gendy of South Amboy, NJ, at around 10:25 p.m. Friday.
Sanjurjo protested, “You got the wrong guy, man,” at his arraignment yesterday.
His lawyer, Anthony Caronna, entered a not-guilty plea, noting that Sanjurjo had assisted at the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 attacks and was hailed as a hero in 2005 for helping get eight developmentally disabled kids off a bus that caught fire while he was driving it.
A law-enforcement source said Sanjurjo is an Air Force veteran who recently became unemployed. He was released on $50,000 bail.