By Adam Pincus
Only an hour before, a 17-year-old Glendale man attempting to stop a fight was stabbed to death blocks from his home, police said, in the first city slaying of the new year.Kendall Scott, 37, of Syracuse, and Joseph Williams, 33, of Hempstead, L.I., were each hit once in a volley of gunfire at around 2:30 a.m. in front of the A. Q. Juice Bar, located at 3-15 27th Ave., police and witnesses said.Scott had been incarcerated several times between 1992 and 2001 and was most recently paroled in January 2001 after a conviction on weapons charge.Authorities said about five people were arguing with another group of about the same size when the shots rang out, wounding Scott in the groin and Williams in the chest.A neighbor who lives in an apartment facing the bar and did not want to give his name said he heard about eight shots.The men got in separate cars and were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens in Astoria, where Williams was pronounced dead at 4:20 a.m. and Scott at 4:44 a.m., police said.Standing in front of the bar Monday where a portion of the sidewalk near the curb remained stained with drops of blood, William Finney said his brother Scott was in Queens visiting his mother, who lives in the Astoria Houses. Finney also said he was skeptical of the increased police presence Sunday and Monday following the shooting.”You never get police out here,” he said. “Now it is swarming because they messed up.”Although he was not present at the shooting, Finney charged that when the police arrived at the scene they proceeded to search his brother, which delayed his trip to the hospital.”The police searched the car for 10 minutes,” he said, aggravating the injury.Another relative, who answered the door of Scott's mother's apartment but did not want to be identified, made no such allegations.”We are in a lot of pain,” she said. “We are not blaming anyone, we just want answers.” Police spokesman Detective Brian Sessa rejected Finney's description of events. “The victims were gone by the time police got there,” he said.A neighbor walking in the pathways between the austere five-story buildings of Astoria Houses said she was familiar with Scott but would not comment on the man: “I knew him. But some things are better left alone.”The city recorded its first death of the year in Glendale with the fatal stabbing of Carlos Cintron, 17, who collapsed in front of 74-24 64th Place in the arms of a friend at about 1:38 a.m. and died about an hour later, authorities said. John Montanez, 20, of the Bronx, was charged with the crime, police said.”For some people this is not a happy New Year,” said one Astoria Houses resident on the first day of 2006.Reach reporter Adam Pincus by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
