Driver charged in Queens shootout that killed NYPD cop Jonathan Diller

One of the suspects involved in the fatal shooting of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller told cops he didn’t know the man who fired the bullet that pierced the officer’s stomach — claiming he’d picked the accused killer up as a hitchhiker — prosecutors said Wednesday.

Lindy Jones, 41, said nothing as he was escorted in handcuffs out of the 101st Precinct stationhouse in Far Rockaway, Queens — right past a movie-poster-sized photo of Diller displayed as part of a memorial for the fallen cop.

The ex-con was more talkative during a gun arrest a year earlier, also in Far Rockaway, when he told arresting officers, “My name is Lindy Jones, and I shoot people,” law enforcement sources said.

“This is exactly the type of individual, the repeat offender that our hero brother went out to try to take off the streets,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry  said Wednesday. “He had no business being on the streets.”

The memorial Jones walked past had several bouquets of flowers, heart and star-shaped balloons and handmade posters with missives, among them: “PS 104 says be safe NYPD. Officer Diller a Hero”

Jones was behind the wheel of a Kia Soul crossover SUV idling in Far Rockaway on Monday evening when his passenger, Guy Rivera, allegedly opened fire on the cop , according to police.

Jones was charged with weapon possession and possession of a defaced firearm for his role in the deadly clash. A defaced firearm with tape on the handle was found in the glove compartment, cops said.

After the shooting, Jones told police he had just picked up Rivera, who was a stranger to him, Queens Assistant District Attorney Gabriel Reale said at the driver’s arraignment in Queens Criminal Court.

Jones pointed himself out in body camera footage sitting in the driver’s seat of the Kia after the shooting, prosecutors said.

Jones was held without bail following the hearing, which was packed with dozens of NYPD officers.

“These were two individuals who were planning something vicious that night,” Hendry said outside the courthouse Wednesday. “They were career criminals, and they did know each other, no doubt about it.”

Jones was previously busted on weapon possession charges last April, after cops allegedly found a loaded pistol in his white Infiniti while it was parked on Beach 47th St., about a mile and a half from Monday’s shooting.

Jones admitted the car and a cell phone next to the gun were his but didn’t cop to the gun.

At his 2023 arraignment, a judge agreed to prosecutors’ requests he be held on $75,000 bail but declined their request for him to be fitted with an ankle monitor. He’d been due back in court Monday in that case.

“He is just as responsible as the individual who pulled that trigger,” Hendry said of Jones. “Today is a road to justice for our hero brother. And we’re gonna continue to be in this courtroom and courtrooms across this city.”

Mayor Adams, announcing Diller’s death at Jamaica Hospital Monday, used Jones’ recent arrest to criticize the state’s bail reform laws.

“April 2023 — less than a year, gun charge, he’s back on the street,” Adams fumed. “This is what you call not a crime problem but a recidivist problem. The same bad people doing bad things to good people.”

Diller, a member of the NYPD’s Queens South Community Response Team, his partner and a sergeant were on Mott Ave. near Smith Place around 5:50 p.m. Monday when they stopped a man they thought was armed.

“[The man] had a hood on, a balaclava-style hood,” a police official who has reviewed the body-camera footage told the Daily News. “And they tell him you were adjusting your waistband, and the guy laughs and says, ‘Yeah, I know.'”

The officers had just confirmed the man wasn’t armed when the sergeant saw Jones and Rivera walking toward the Kia Soul.

While it was first reported the Kia was in a bus stop, further investigation revealed it was parked at a meter, which the men didn’t put coins into, cops said.

“Rivera is walking with a bubble jacket open and his front hoodie pocket, where it turned out he had the gun, is hanging,” the official said.

The sergeant noticed and informed Diller and his partner.

“He has 20 years of experience, and he has a front view of that hoodie pocket,” the official said.

When the men get into the Soul, the officers “make a bee-line to the car,” the official said.

Investigators believe Jones and Rivera were either casing a nearby T-Mobile store or keeping tabs on someone they wanted to rob when the cops approached.

Rivera, 34, refused Diller’s command to open the passenger side door, the official said. When Jones finally complied and popped the locks, Diller tried to open the door, but Rivera twice pulled the door back.

When Diller then managed to yank the door open, Rivera allegedly pulled a gun and shot the officer.

“You can hear [Diller] say, ‘Take your hands out of your pocket,’ ” said the NYPD official who reviewed the body camera footage. “And then he’s shot, and you hear him say, ‘I’m shot!’ ”

Diller’s partner opened fire three times in response, hitting Rivera in the back.

Rivera’s gun, which jammed after he fired once, fell to the ground.

Despite his fatal wound, Diller managed to grab Rivera’s gun before the suspect could pick it up.

Rivera remained in the hospital Wednesday. Charges against him were pending.

Diller leaves behind a young bride and a 1-year-old son. A funeral mass for the fallen cop is scheduled for Saturday in Massapequa Park, L.I.

The fallen cop’s loved ones on Wednesday were collecting photos of the officer to give to his baby son.

“They will be added to a book to be given to his son as he grows to be able to peer into who his father was ,” brother-in-law Jonathan McAuley wrote on Facebook.