By Adam Pincus
Carlos Cintron, 17, collapsed in front of 74-24 64th Place in the arms of a friend at about 1:38 a.m. a half a block from where the victim had attempted to break up a spat between John Montanez, 20, and another friend, police and neighbors said.Montanez, of the Bronx, allegedly stabbed Cintron at the corner of Cooper Avenue and 64th Place, and then fled, police said, while the victim and several other men walked toward Cintron's home, at 70-41 65th Place, making it only a half a block before he collapsed.An ambulance took him to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, where police said he was pronounced dead at 2:49 a.m.Montanez was arrested Sunday and later charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon at his arraignment in Queens Criminal Court the next day, law enforcement officials said. In court documents, he appeared to take the blame for his friend's death.”It's all my fault. I have to make it right,” police reported Montanez saying six hours after the slaying.Cintron's death was the first of three murders New Year's weekend in the borough, and it was the second year in a row that the first homicide of the city had occurred in Queens.Longtime friends of Cintron were heartbroken by his death and gathered Monday around an impromptu memorial arranged down the street from his home. Photos and letters were taped to a lamppost, along with favorite items of the victim, including a black baseball cap and his white tennis shoes, while below that dozens of candles burned on the sidewalk.Lucy Sala, 18, who attended Grover Cleveland High School with Cintron and grew up with him in the Glendale neighborhood said she was stunned by the news that her friend of 12 years was dead.”I couldn't breathe. I couldn't believe it,” she said. She sped home from a vacation in Pennsylvania to be with her friends.”He was a good kid. He was the best.” She supported the police description of her friend, who was also known as Ben or Charlie, as a peacemaker: “He was not the type to start a fight.”Another neighborhood friend, Manuel Matias, 17, was tending the candles Monday at the memorial, lighting those that had burned out and emptying others of wax.He said Cintron was a good friend who lived for each day and was crazy about his girlfriend Vlora, whom he had been dating about a year and a half.”He didn't have plans. He lived by the day,” he said, then pointed to a photo of Cintron and Vlora high on the lamppost.”That's the girl he loved. He used to like to drink a lot, but she didn't like it so he didn't do it at all,” he said.Cintron is survived by his sister Amy and mother Donna. His father died about eight years ago, a neighbor said.Cintron's death was the first of three in the borough over the New Year's weekend. Two other men were killed in a double shooting in Astoria. Another man was killed in Harlem.Last year in a shooting that remains unsolved, Mohamed Yussef, 55, was shot at around 2 a.m. Jan. 2 in his driveway at 107-45 105th St. in Ozone Park.Reach reporter Adam Pincus by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
