Prosecutors yesterday were set to arraign the Bronx teen who allegedly opened fire at the Bryant Park ice skating rink over a popular model of jacket.
Corey Dunton, 16, was expected to be charged in Manhattan Criminal Court Mondaywith attempted murder, and will be tried as an adult, authorities said.
The teen grinned and shouted swears at reporters as he was taken from the Midtown South Precinct station to his arraignment, at one point saying, "It wasn’t over a jacket … it was over your mother."
Dunton was brought in less than a day after the shooting after investigators found his Facebook page where he admitted to allegedly going to the ice rink and shooting two people, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Kelly added the Saturday night shooting was random and stemmed from an earlier attempt by Dunton to steal the coat of one of the ice skaters. "The two individuals did not know each other," he told reporters at Madison Square Park.
Dunton first asked for the coat, a Marmot Mammoth, but the 20-year-old victim refused and possibly argued with him. The jacket, known as the "biggie," has been at the center of a lot of crimes this year, Kelly said.
The teen left, returned a short while later and allegedly called out the victim before firing eight shots into the crowd, striking the 20-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy who was in the crossfire.
Both suffered serious, but nonlife- threatening injuries. The teen, who was shot in the back, is believed to be left paralyzed from the waist down, said NYPD Sergeant Lee Jones.
Kelly said other skaters helped to identify Dunton who was picked up at his mother’s home in the Bronx Sunday night.
