A slippery convicted killer on the lam for four years was finally nabbed in a tense standoff in Queens yesterday — after brazenly firing at US marshals, officials said.
Derome Gray, 40, who served 15 years in prison for manslaughter and held up a Queens post office at gunpoint after being released squeezed off two shots at the officers from the Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force at a cohort’s Springfield Gardens home, authorities said.
The showdown occurred after the marshals tracked down Gray, who had shaved off his trademark dreadlocks and dropped weight while in hiding, to a house at 168-18 144th Terrace, sources said.
At about 7:30 a.m., the marshals broke down the front door and cautiously made their way upstairs. Gray, who had been hiding in a bedroom, suddenly fired through the door with his .380-caliber, semiautomatic handgun, the sources said.
The marshals didn’t return fire, instead taking cover and then managing to coax Gray into surrendering.
The officers then took Gray and the home’s owner, Mark Cumberbatch, into custody. Officials recovered five guns at the two-family home, including a loaded Mac 10 submachine gun and a tiny Derringer, officials said.
“This fugitive was heavily armed with a cache of illegal weapons. The marshals showed great restraint by not returning fire into an apartment that could have contained innocent people,” said Charles Dunne, the marshal for the Eastern District of New York.
Gray had been released from prison in 2005 after serving time for manslaughter in the 1988 stabbing of a man with a knife.
He had been denied parole five times before being released.
Two years later, in 2007, he allegedly participated in the armed robbery of the Archer Avenue Post Office in Jamaica.
Yesterday, Gray pleaded not guilty to the robbery rap in Brooklyn federal court.
Additional charges related to yesterday’s gunfire — including assaulting a federal officer and firearms violations — could be forthcoming, the sources said.
Assistant US Attorney Seth DuCharme asked the court to hold Gray in custody, saying he posed “a flight risk” and was a “danger to the community.”
“Just this morning, when the marshals went to arrest him, the defendant fired two shots at the marshals,” DuCharme said.
“The defendant has been a fugitive for several years.”
Magistrate Judge Robert Levy ordered Gray held in federal detention.
Additional reporting by Ikimulisa Livingston