Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said no charges will be filed in the Aug. 26 killing of an Allentown man, saying the shooting “appears to have been justified as self-defense,” according to a news release issued Wednesday.
Alberto Montanez, 35, was shot at 5:40 a.m. in the 1100 block of West Allen Street and pronounced dead at the scene, according to the county coroner’s office.
Authorities provided no further details about the circumstances that led up to the killing, other than to say the shooting appears to have been justified and “no criminal charges can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” the news release states. Montanez lived in the 1900 block of East Cedar Street, authorities say.
Authorities did not release the identity of the shooter, but said a “full, complete and extensive investigation” was completed by Allentown police Detective Amaury Almonte and Detective Joseph Vazquez with the county’s homicide task force.
The shooting happened in a neighborhood of row homes just a few blocks from the Union West End Cemetery.
A woman who answered the door at Montanez’s family home declined to comment Wednesday.
Allentown police said Montanez was shot more than a year ago outside an Allentown night club at American Parkway and Hamilton Street. Montanez was found unresponsive with injuries to his vital organs, police said, and was rushed to an area hospital. A second man suffered a gunshot wound to the leg.
Authorities charged Raymond J. Clavell, then 20, of Allentown, with attempted homicide and related offenses in the crime. However, the charges against Clavell were dismissed in October after Montanez and the other victim did not testify, according to court records. Officials said police could not locate one victim and the other declined to specify. It was unclear whether Montanez was the victim who declined to testify or whether police were unable to locate him.
Clavell is incarcerated at the State Correctional Institute at Camp Hill on an unrelated drug charge.
In recent years, Montanez was twice charged with harassment, pleading guilty in 2013 and again earlier this year. In 2001, he pleaded guilty to a gun violation; he pleaded guilty to a drug charge in 2004 and no contest to conspiracy to sell drugs in 2005.
Court records indicate Montanez was involved in a custody dispute with an Allentown woman starting in 2014.
http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-nws-allentown-shooting-self-defense-20170927-story.html