Demetrius Blackwell had been brandishing “a silver handgun” after tossing bricks and cinder-blocks through an associate’s window following on argument when he made the threat foreshadowing the May 2015 shooting.
When the unnamed man warned he would call the cops, Queens prosecutor Robert Masters said Blackwell sneered: “If you call them I will pop them, too.”
The 37-year-old is accused of later opening fire on Moore and his partner, Erik Jansen, shooting the 25-year-old cop in the head. Moore underwent 4 hours of emergency surgery, but was later taken off life support. Jansen wasn’t hit.
The gunfire erupted after Moore asked Blackwell ““Do you have something in your waist?’’ to which he allegedly responded “yeah, I got something,” and pulled out the gun.
Defense attorney David Bart told the court Tuesday his client had a seizure the night before, and suffers from epileptic attacks which leave him “confused, irritated and not responsible for his actions.”
It was revealed in court the career con had previously undergone frontal lobe surgery and a partial lobotomy, though it remained unclear if that procedure was related to the epilepsy.
“Thousands upon thousands of people have epileptic episodes every day and they don’t murder police officers,” Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch scoffed after the hearing.
Blackwell is scheduled to return to court June 27. He faces life behind bars if convicted.