By Ayala Ben-Yehuda
A man was arrested Sunday on charges he tried to kill a 68-year-old Little Neck civic leader and member of Community Board 11 at a social services agency in Jamaica, the Queens district attorney's office said.
Law enforcement officials said Allan Palzer was shot three times Feb. 21 allegedly by Marc E. Tucker, an employee of the Rockaway Boulevard Senior Center who believed he was going to be fired.
Palzer was shot at the Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults' central office at 162-04 Jamaica Ave., where he held a managerial position, according to law enforcement officials. The agency provides Meals-on-Wheels, adult day care, recreation and other programs at five centers in southeast Queens.
Tucker, 47, of 128-15 142nd St. in Jamaica, was charged with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, the district attorney's criminal complaint said.
He is being held without bail and faces a sentence of 12 1/2 to 25 years in prison if convicted, a spokeswoman for the district attorney said.
Tucker's attorney, Eugene Sarchiapone, said his client had pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday.
The complaint said Palzer was shot in the face, neck and shoulder with a handgun. He was in stable condition in the intensive care unit at Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, according to the complaint.
It also said Palzer regained consciousness long enough to tell a police officer in the hospital that Tucker had shot him.
Staffers at the Jamaica agency refused to comment on the shooting.
Carolyn Palzer said her husband could not speak because of a broken jaw, but was alert.
“He's slowly but surely improving, but we have a long road ahead of us,” said Carolyn Palzer, a former member of Community School Board 26.
Allan Palzer's father, Nat, owned The Little Neck Ledger from about 1938 to 1956. Carolyn Palzer said her husband would deliver the papers as a boy.
She said that instead of cards or flowers, “right now we would like good thoughts from community.”
Members of Community Board 11, which covers Bayside, Little Neck, Douglaston and part of Auburndale, offered their support for Palzer at a monthly meeting Monday night as news of the shooting spread through the community.
“Our prayers are going out to him and his family for a speedy recovery,” said CB 11 Chairman Jerry Iannece.
Law enforcement officials said Tucker shot Palzer because Tucker expected Palzer to fire him that day, although they did not know whether Tucker had been warned previously.
Calling Palzer “a first-class person” with no enemies, family friend Bernard Haber said Palzer, the third longest-serving member of the community board and its former vice chairman, had a long record of civic involvement that included the presidency of the Little Neck Civic Association.
Haber said Palzer had chosen to work in the nonprofit sector after retiring from a career in personnel administration and that Palzer's wife had asked for help in getting local civic associations to raise a reward for locating her husband's assailant before Tucker was arrested.
“He is a very pleasant guy,” said Haber, who served as chairman of Community Board 11 for three decades. “It's a shocking thing.”
Sean Walsh, a former board member and current president of the Queens Civic Congress, an umbrella group representing more than 100 civic associations in the borough, referred to the quiet Palzer as “a sweetheart of a guy.”
Walsh, who learned of the shooting at the board meeting, said Palzer supported the Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade and the preservation of Udalls Cove, among other causes.
Reach reporter Ayala Ben-Yehuda by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
