April 22, 2002 — A knife-wielding man yesterday messed with the
wrong guy – a retired cop who shot him dead when the former officer
feared he was about to be attacked, police said.

Authorities said the incident appeared to be an attempted mugging.

Retired NYPD Officer Luke Blake was about to get into his car at the
corner of Port Richmond and Castleton avenues on Staten Island at about
4 a.m. when he spotted two men walking toward him – one of them carrying
a large kitchen knife.

Blake told cops he stepped away from his car and started backing away
from the pair, noticing a group of four men nearby as he did so.

He pulled out a licensed 9mm handgun and told Ricardo Carlon, 24,
several times to drop the weapon, investigators said.

The man yelled in Spanish and kept walking toward him, the ex-cop said.
Blake did not understand what Carlon had said.

As Blake backed away, he started to trip and fall backward, then fired
three times, hitting Carlon at least twice.

Carlon died at St. Vincents Hospital on Staten Island at 4:44 a.m.

“I was scared,” Blake told cops.

“He feared for his life,” said one investigator.
Five men with Carlon were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct
and obstructing governmental administration because they allegedly
refused to cooperate with police.

Police said Carlon had been carrying a kitchen knife with a 9-inch
blade.

Blake was not charged.

“There’s nothing at this point to indicate that it was an improper
shooting,” said NYPD spokesman Bernard Gifford.

Blake would not talk about the incident.

“I’m still a little bruised,” he said at his Staten Island home,
referring to his fall.

Cops said that just before the incident, Blake had been with friends at
the room they rent for motorcycle-club meetings.

A friend of Carlon insisted the dead man was not a mugger.

Lionel Calero, who grew up with Carlon in Mexico City, said Carlon had
been at a friend’s home and heard a commotion.

Another friend had just been robbed – and Carlon went to look for the
assailant, said the Rev. Bill Harder of St. Mary of the Assumption
Church.

As Carlon was returning to the house, the confrontation with Blake
occurred. Calero insisted Carlon had no knife.

Authorities said Carlon had no police record. “At this point, there are
just a lot of questions,” Harder said.

Carlon’s parents “were waiting for him to come to Mexico to get married
[next month],” Calero said. “But now they’re bringing him back dead.”
Blake, 38, retired from the NYPD with a job-related disability in June
1999.

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