There's no blood on the hands of the NYPD, as usual. On Monday night the 94th Precinct held a community meeting that touched upon the fatal hit and run in Greenpoint on April 27th. Streetsblog reports that the officers denied that a high-speed chase led to the death of 38-year-old local mom Violetta Kryzak.
The site reports that on Monday "Deputy Inspector Dennis Fulton, the precinct’s commanding officer, told approximately 40 assembled neighbors, 'At this point it appears as though there was not a high-speed chase. To make sure, it’s being investigated by our Internal Affairs Bureau. But it does not appear that anyone was following [the perpetrator].” This comment was made despite numerous eyewitness accounts reporting an undercover cop car "in hot pursuit" of the stolen vehicle speeding down Manhattan Avenue in broad daylight.
Miss Heather was also at the meeting, and has it all on video. The officer addressing the topic, D.I. Fulton, expressed condolences to the victim's family, however says there was “no pursuit." Interesting since they also admit there was an erratically-driven, speeding, stolen vehicle that they were following. While awaiting more NYPD denials of the high-speed chase, we highly recommend watching all of the videos from the meeting, particularly the first one which includes a cameo from a local character who is simply fed up with those honking school buses—though oddly enough, there was no talk of the insanity-inducing ice cream truck jingles.





what? are you kidding?!
High speed chase in NY, nah, couldn't have lead to any accidents. Sheesh.
At least the LAPD admit when they cause accidents with high speed chases.
can't they (the victim's family) subpoena the radio calls or traffic during the time of the "accident"?
of course, central will put out stop pursuit but that does not mean the cop cars will immediately stop.
This post on streetsblog comments on the meeting, checks back with witnesses who reported a gray unmarked police sedan in pursuit (photos posted afterwards showed such a car at the scene), and has a comment from someone identifying himself as a private detective working for the deceased's family's law firm:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/05/21/nypd-denies-high-speed-chase-in-death-of-greenpoint-mom/
One thing that seems to be undetermined so far is whether the police car was using a siren, though all witnesses mention lights were in use. One of the witnesses quoted on streetblog mentions a siren, other witnesses say there wasn't one, and I read a witness account somewhere right after this happened that said the car had a siren on, but the volume was so low he couldn't hear it until the car passed.
GOTHAMIST - maybe you can take one of your beat reporters off the hipster/grifter story and I dont know, do some "journalism" on a case thats important like this one.
What do you think?
I saw the unmarked gray police car. I could hear the engine racing as it approached, so I stepped back and looked. It was going way too fast. My first thought was "damn, someone is going to get hurt". It's a busy neighborhood.
There was no siren, don't remember if there were lights. It was unmistakably a police vehicle.
This was outside Radio Shack on Manhattan Ave. He may have put his siren on later or earlier.