A gangbanger wanted for a fatally shooting near the Bronx courthouse was busted coming out of another court house — Manhattan federal court — on Friday, police said.
Members of the NYPD’s Violent Felony Task Force grabbed Diquinn Lacend, 29, after he stepped out of the Worth St. entrance to the lower Manhattan federal courthouse Friday, where he is facing narcotics distribution charges from an unrelated case, officials said.
Cops charged the 18 Park gang member with murder and manslaughter for blasting James Thrower at the corner of Teller Ave. and E. 162 St. a block from the Bronx criminal court in Grand Concourse just before midnight on July 15, police said.
The two men were fighting near the corner when Lacend pulled a gun and started firing, cops said.
It was not immediately disclosed what the two men were fighting about.
Police responding to an alert from the city’s ShotSpotter system found Thrower at the intersection. He was rushed to Lincoln Hospital, but could not be saved.
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After identifying him as the shooter from surveillance images collected at the scene, detectives realized he had a court appearance in Manhattan Federal Court and grabbed him as he exited the courthouse.
He and several members of his gang were busted in 2015 during a sweeping federal investigation accusing Lacend and other members of distributing crack, heroin and marijuana around the Patterson Houses and the Mott Haven Houses in the Bronx. A handful of other gang members were accused of murder and attempted murder.
Cops also charged Lacend with weapons possession in Thrower’s death. His arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court was pending Saturday.
Thrower, whom relatives nicknamed “Tyrone,” worked as a plumber and had a passion for video games and his beloved pet Shih Tzu, Poppy. Heartbroken family members said Thrower just moved to the Bronx from Queens, and did not know why he would have been targeted.
“He didn’t have any trouble where he was living at, so this was just an unfortunate event,” his sister Shaniqua Smalls, 47, told the Daily News after her brother’s death. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s weird cause he really didn’t know too many people in the area.”
Relatives had hoped Lacend would turn himself in.
“He didn’t deserve to leave this world like that,” Thrower’s cousin Nicole Glover, 32, said. “This shouldn’t (have) been brought on him.”
Read More: Gang member busted in NYC homicide: NYPD