Two men nabbed yesterday in connection with a pair of Queens shootings – including the wounding of a diplomat’s son – have been charged with three murders in Virginia, sources said.
Police said the suspects, Jamal Crawford, 21, and Joshua Andrew, 19, were picked up after cops spotted them in a car that matched the description of a sedan linked to two shootings on Monday.
The cops pulled over the Mercury Sable at Exterior and East 146th streets in The Bronx after it ran a red light early in the afternoon, police said.
Sources said the pair were held on federal arrest warrants connecting them to three recent shootings in Virginia that left three people dead and two others seriously wounded.
Police say they believe the pair robbed a bodega on Guy Brewer Boulevard in Jamaica about 8:30 p.m. Monday, when they shot a 20-year-old clerk.
The victim, who was shot in the face, is the son of a diplomat and was recovering yesterday at Mary Immaculate Hospital, sources said.
They said the pair fled the scene of that robbery-shooting, driving down a dead-end street and trying to make a U-turn near on 133rd Avenue, where they ran over the lawn of off-duty Queens traffic cop James Celestine.
Police said Celestine, who knew nothing of the robbery, yelled at the pair and one of them responded by firing a shot at him that grazed him in the head.
Celestine, 61, was treated at Jamaica Hospital.