A preliminary police report included a false account of the circumstances surrounding the death of 22-year-old Jack Delaney Koval, who was struck and killed by the driver of a 2014 Dodge Charger on the West Side Highway early last Sunday morning. Koval did not, as was originally reported, jump a divider and step into oncoming traffic before he was killed.

While the investigation is ongoing, police confirmed Friday that the divider account has been dismissed. The official Police Accident Report, shared with Gothamist by Koval's family, makes no mention of a divider. Instead it states that Koval was crossing 12th Avenue in the crosswalk at 46th Street shortly after 2:15 a.m. on July 31st. The driver, according to the report, had the green light when he struck Koval.

A spokeswoman for the NYPD confirmed Friday that the Accident Report is based off of surveillance footage from the scene. She could not, however, determine where the divider account came from.

"Apparently that was the wrong information," she said. "Because for some reason, I'm not sure exactly where that came from, but they [the traffic unit] don't have that [divider statement] on any of their paperwork."

"This is what whoever provided information gave us, and we got the correct information after," she continued. "We usually try to wait a little bit before we send this information out. I don't know what happened there."

The standard e-mail alert sent to local media outlets a few hours after Koval's death stated that, according to a "preliminary investigation," the victim had "climbed over a divider and stepped into oncoming traffic." The news was reported widely. "Pedestrian fatally struck on West Side Highway after climbing over divider," Pix11 wrote.

The Emory Wheel, the newspaper at Koval's Alma mater, generated its own diagram of the crash, based off of the preliminary information from the NYPD. In it, dashed arrows indicate Koval crossing over the median, outside of the crosswalk.

Koval, who graduated from Emory University this spring, moved to New York City shortly after the Fourth of July to start a job as an analyst at Centerview Partners, a financial advisory firm. "It was absolutely his dream job," his father, Joe Koval, told us from his home in Rochester, NY. "I mean, he was just never happier."

Friends from school, including his Alpha Kappa Psi Fraternity, have loaded Koval's Facebook with comments in the last week. "Thank you for being an amazing friend, for explaining math theorems to me so I could (barely) pass our classes," wrote his friend Sarah Choi.

Koval was killed a few blocks away from his 11th Avenue high-rise apartment. The NYPD's preliminary report provided minimal information about the 26-year-old driver, who remained on the scene: only that the vehicle was "traveling northbound on 12th Avenue." Police provided additional information on Friday, stating that the driver crossed from the left-center lane to the right-center lane after crossing 45th Street, and struck Koval in the crosswalk at 46th Street.

Koval's father was upset by the early media reports, which he feared painted an inaccurate picture of his son.

"He just would not cross a barrier," he told us. "I mean, I've been in parking lots with him where I climbed over a barrier and he would walk 50 yards to get around through the opening and come back.... He just wasn't in a hurry, ever."

A recent Transportation Alternatives report accuses the NYPD of enabling victim-blaming in crash cases by providing preliminary information to the press. It cites the case of Lauren Davis, a cyclist killed in Brooklyn earlier this year—police initially said she had been biking against traffic, then retracted the allegation. In the case of cyclist James Gregg, police on the scene reportedly told bystanders that Gregg had grabbed onto the truck that struck him, apparently to hitch a ride. The NYPD's press office later said that Gregg had not grabbed the truck.

"When circumstances surrounding a crash are unclear, it is irresponsible to speculate as to the actions or mentality of the deceased before an investigation has been conducted," the group writes, adding, "Often at a later date, video or other evidence emerges to exonerate the victim—but the damage has already been done."

The NYPD spokeswoman we discussed the Koval case with this week said that it's the responsibility of the media to check back in. "We tell you guys, give us some time because it can always change," she said. "Always try to call maybe later on in the day, because if we have a lot of different media e-mails [going out], we might not have time to send an update [on a crash]."

"Well, [the NYPD] shouldn't be publishing it," countered Attorney Steve Vaccaro, who primarily represents cyclists and pedestrians injured and killed by reckless drivers.

"What additional step do they need to invoke?" he added. "What additional step is necessary to make sure that the information is accurate, and why isn't the NYPD taking that step as a matter of course before disseminating an initial version of what happened?"

Since his son's death, Joe Koval says, he and his wife have been talking to a Midtown North detective almost every day. Officers have yet to provide the Koval family with updates based on their surveillance video analysis, like whether the driver may have been speeding. "According to them it can be six to eight months before anything's resolved, before anyone is charged, if at all," Koval said.

"It's killing my wife because she just can't believe that [Jack] would have done something [to put himself at risk]," he added. "He's just too savvy. It had to be something out of the normal to happen for him to succumb to a situation like that. He was just too sharp."

The NYPD says the investigation is ongoing. The driver remained at the scene and no charges have been filed.