By JHERELLE BENN & CATCHCHA RICHARDS
An eyewitness to a case involving the murder of two men in East New York testified in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Thursday, saying he heard the gunshots and tried to prevent the murder from happening earlier that day.
Detectives contacted the witness, Orlando Martinez just the night before his testimony in court the following morning.
Martinez, who worked in a Deli on Pennsylvania Ave, said he knew the defendant, Raul Correa, around the neighborhood as “Lefty”. Martinez testified that he tried to calm Correa down the day of the shooting and told him to go home when he showed up to the bodega with the murder weapon. Martinez heard gunshots outside shortly after. The day after the murder Martinez left the city and moved to New Jersey, fear for his own life.
Correa, 59, was charged with two counts of murder and criminal possession of a weapon in Oct. 2013 after his victims were found dead with gunshot wounds to the chest just up the block from his home in East New York.
According to published reports, Correa was well known in his neighborhood for being an avid drinker and “an occasional drug dealer.” Correa and the two victims, Tevin Beckles, 21, and Randolph Williams, 37, had a long history of breaking the law. The three of them combined had been arrested nearly 100 times, police said.
A man in the neighborhood who wanted to remain anonymous told The New York Times that Correa was often harassed by young men on the block. On the day of the shooting Correa was frequenting the deli, one of his usual drinking spots, when he encountered a group of young men. Martinez, who chose to speak in Spanish, his native language, described to the courts how he heard a sound like somebody being smacked and gestured by clapping his hands together loudly. After investigating he found Correa visibly shaken on the ground with a bloody nose.
Martinez’s testimony portrayed Correa as someone who had enough of the harassment. “He looked like a crazy mad man,” said Martinez.
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