The 47-year-old burglar who authorities say took his own life after swapping shots with police in Marine Park last Monday was a career criminal who spent 14 years in jail for trying to kill a cop back in 1993.
Robert Rementaria, the Sheepshead Bay parolee who shot himself in the head as he escaped from cops after a botched burglary on April 26, had only gotten out of jail three years ago after being convicted of kidnapping and attempted murder — a detail that complicates the official police story about his death last week.
Details of the moments before Rementaria’s death are not in dispute.
At around 6:22 pm, cops responded to a call of a burglary in progress Quentin Road and East 37th Street, and found Rementaria rooting around inside the house.
The officers were awaiting backup when Rementaria exited and, without saying a word, pulled a .9-mm Baretta and opened fire, police said.
A police sergeant returned fire, striking Rementaria in the left thigh.
Wounded, Rementaria hobbled off. Here’s where things get a bit murky.
According to police, witnesses say that Rementaria shot himself in the head as police chased him. The next day, the medical examiner sided with those witnesses, saying that Rementaria died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Investigators said that Rementaria opted to take his own life rather than go to prison, where he’d spent nearly a decade and a half after attempting to kidnap and kill Officer Albert Valdes, who had an ongoing beef with Rementaria’s former girlfriend.
In that crime, police said that Rementaria and another man carjacked Valdes, pistol-whipped him and then drove him to a desolate area to kill him.
But the cop managed to wrestle the gun away from the two men and opened fire, killing Rementaria’s partner in crime, 27-year-old Vincent Ferrentino.
Rementaria was also wounded, police said, adding that the bullet Valdes fired into the would-be kidnapper was still inside him when the autopsy was performed on him after the botched burglary last week.
The crazed kidnapping wasn’t the first time Rementaria had been incarcerated. He had been arrested 17 times in the 15 years before that incident, police said.
Rementaria was a pro who was able to elude police so many times because he carried a police scanner with him, cops added.
“He was a burglar, but more professional than most because of the equipment he had on him,” said Inspector Frank Cangiarella, explaining that cops found a scanner among Rementaria’s belongings following the shootout.
But Rementaria’s own ignorance about police procedures may have ultimately led to his undoing, Cangiarella said. The thief’s police scanner was tuned to the neighboring 61st Precinct, not the 63rd Precinct, during his burglary.
“He never heard the call that brought the cops to the scene,” he said.