Results tagged “fatal”

Yesterday around 4 p.m. word came in on the newswire that there was a "motorcycle down" on, or just before, the Williamsburg Bridge—towards the Manhattan side. Shortly after an update came in saying the accident was fatal. There aren't many details beyond those available yet, but eyewitnesses say the motorcycle was actually a Vespa, and it was hit (and totaled) by a black car. The Vespa driver is the one who died, and URB Magazine reports it was deejay Josh Link (friends are confirming on Twitter). Many witnessed the scene, which has been described as bloody, and one even posted their thoughts on Craigslist, noting that late last night there were burning candles where the crash happened. UPDATE: It has been confirmed that Josh Link was the victim in this sad accident, and services will be held on Long Island tomorrow.

Sources tell NY1 that three witnesses heard the officer who fatally shot an armed, plainclothes off-duty officer In Harlem Thursday night identify himself as NYPD. Those three witnesses include the two other cops who arrived on the scene with officer Andrew who fired and the car break-in suspect that slain Officer Omar Edwards was chasing, Migueal Goitia. According to the Post, Goitia [earlier identified with the last name alias "Santiago"] has been hospitalized several times for unknown reasons since his arrest.

The off-duty police officer who was fatally shot by police in Harlem last night as he chased a burglar with his gun drawn died from a gunshot wound from the chest. But a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner says that though the fatal bullet was recovered from the front of Officer Omar Edwards's chest, the bullet actually entered the left side of his back before hitting his heart and left lung. Another bullet struck his left arm, and a third hit his left hip. The NYPD is still withholding the name of the white cop who fired on Edwards and is conducting an investigation to determine whether officers identified themselves. But Rev. Al Sharpton wants a federal investigation; speaking to 1010WINS, he says sees "a growing pattern of black officers being killed with the assumption that they are the criminals." On that note, City Room takes a compelling look back at the many incidents of white cops shooting black cops over the years, including one such report from 1940 with the antiquated yet eerie headline "Patrolman Slain by Fellow-Police: Negro, Off-Duty and Chasing a Burglar, Felled by Shots of Men from Radio Car."

       

A white cop fatally shot a black off-duty officer in plainclothes who was chasing a robbery suspect in East Harlem last night. The victim, a recently married father of a 1-year-old and 7-month-old from Brooklyn named Omar Edwards, had been an NYPD officer for two years and patrolled housing projects as part of the Housing Bureau Impact Response Team. Police sources say that when Edwards left duty and went to his car around 10:30 p.m., he found his driver's side window broken and a man inside searching for valuables. According to the Post, he called 911 before confronting the thief.

Three pedestrians were killed by drivers in three separate accidents in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan yesterday, but there's one thing that ties the incidents together: As usual, none of the drivers were charged. In Harlem, 73-year-old great-grandmother Vivian Long, a retired teacher's aide, was crossing Amsterdam Avenue with her granddaughter when she was fatally struck by an Access-A-Ride vehicle. (For the record, Access-A-Ride drivers are the worst.) She died at St. Luke's Hospital. In Borough Park, 25-year-old Matvey Smolovich, who according to his relatives had mental problems, was run over by a mini school bus around 10 a.m. after stepping out from between parked cars 100 feet from the crosswalk. His father tells the Daily News, "He left the house without my permission... After this I don't care about anything. My life is ruined." The 55-year-old bus driver stayed at the scene, and the NYPD is investigating, but hasn't arrested anyone. Then in Flushing, Queens, the 19-year-old driver of a Nissan Altima killed a jogger who also stepped into the street from between parked cars. He was rushed to New York Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

A Bronx family is mourning this Christmas Day after 7-year-old Chelsea Maldonado died after falling 50 feet. The girl, who is described as autistic (the Daily News says she uses a wheelchair and is blind in one eye), had apparently climbed out the apartment's bathroom window around 7 p.m. last night. Chelsea had survived the fall—a source told the Post that when a cop got there, "He was surprised to learn that she fell from a fifth-story window," since she was conscious and crying—and doctors initially thought she might survive. The girl had been in the bathroom alone and somehow climbed over the window guard, which was only covering the lower part of the window. A shocked neighbor said, "You can see I have window guard in all my window, because I want to avoid something like that."

There was a fatal bicycle accident last night on the Williamsburg Bridge bike and pedestrian path; an initial report tells us that the accident involved "a cyclist vs. a guardrail" and that the cyclist was DOA at the hospital. [Update below.]

A 15-year-old girl who was shot in the head yesterday died from her injuries. No arrests have been made in the shooting, but Brandon Bethea was shot shortly before midnight on Redfern Ave. in Queens. She was taken to St. Johns Hospital, but did not survive. Bethea had returned to her old neighborhood in Far Rockaway in order to find a dress for her junior prom, when she was shot. The girl seems to have been a random victim after a man opened fire on a crowd in the street. One resident was despondent about the senseless violence. "All these young babies are dying over nothing."