A Long Island father shot to death an unarmed 17-year-old boy – after the victim confronted the man’s teenage son in a late-night screaming match in front of his home, police said.
John White, 53, shot Daniel Cicciaro at point-blank range late Wednesday night in the driveway of his home in Miller Place, after shouting, “I’m going to kill you,” police said.
Suffolk Homicide Squad Commander Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick said the tragic chain of events was set into motion when 19-year-old Aaron White crashed a party earlier in the evening.
At that party was a teenage girl who recognized the younger White, a college student. “He apparently had a longtime problem” with the girl, Fitzpatrick said.
She told others at the gathering that White had made “inappropriate comments about her in an Internet chat room” nine months earlier, Fitzpatrick said.
White was asked to leave the party, which he did.
But Cicciaro, of Port Jefferson Station, began calling White on his cellphone, Fitzpatrick said. The two youths argued in a series of calls that culminated with Cicciaro and four pals driving from the party to the White home at 11:15 p.m.
Aaron White woke his dad and told him the teens were on their way to confront him. The father, armed with a pistol, and the son, armed with a shotgun, met the youths outside the home, cops said.
They did not call police.
“There was a lot of yelling on both sides,” Fitzpatrick said.
John White allegedly pointed the pistol at Cicciaro’s head from a few feet away and shouted: “I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you!”
But when the teen did not flee, the asphalt-company worker fired one shot into Cicciaro’s face, killing him, cops said.
He later admitted to police he shot the boy, but he and his son refused to say any more to authorities, saying they had already engaged a lawyer.
John White was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
“Obviously, you can’t shoot somebody who is not threatening you,” Fitzpatrick said. Several weapons were recovered from the White home.
But Andrew Siben, a lawyer for the shooter, said Cicciaro’s actions “were racially motivated.”
The dead teen and his four pals who went to the house are white, while John and Aaron White are black.
Siben said he hoped the Suffolk DA would reconsider the charges against White “when the facts come out.”
The elder White was arraigned yesterday at Suffolk County 1st District Court in Central Islip, where a judge ordered him held without bail.
The judge granted a request from White’s lawyer that the suspect – who has worked for the same New York City company for 25 years and had never before been arrested – be placed in protective custody in the Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead.