NYPD lieutenant accidentally shot and killed the driver of a stolen car

NYPD lieutenant accidentally shot and killed the driver of a stolen car Thursday night when the car clipped him after the driver crashed into a parked SUV and drove up on a sidewalk while trying to escape, police and witnesses said.Two members of the Brooklyn auto larceny unit in an unmarked car followed the 2004 Ford Mustang GT after learning that it had been stolen several days earlier from an East Brunswick, N.J., auto dealership, police said. They called for backup, and two officers from the unit, who were watching a stolen car parked nearby, showed up to box in the sports car on Lenox Road at about 8 p.m., police said.
Four uniformed cops approached with their guns drawn, ordering the driver to stop.
During his attempt to flee, the 25-year-old driver of the Mustang, whose name wasnot immediately released, repeatedly slammed into a parked SUV, tearing off the vehicle's rear wheel and forcing its rear half onto the sidewalk.
One of the two passengers in the Mustang got out and tried to run, but officers nabbed an 18-year-old, who has prior arrests, within a block, police sources said. He had been shot in April and refused to cooperate with a police investigation, a source said. The Mustang then jumped the curb and drove into the gate of an auto mechanic's shop, police said. "I heard a boom, screeching wheels and he went up on the sidewalk," said Steven Olivo, 14, who lives nearby. "Then there was another boom." Throwing the car into reverse, the driver, who also had been arrested several times, sped back into traffic and spun the car about 270 degrees, striking the lieutenant, police said. As the car hit the cop, he accidentally fired his gun, sending a bullet through a rear window and striking the driver, a police source said. "When he got hit by the car, his gun went off," the source said. The car traveled a few hundred feet before crashing into a beauty salon, where the second passenger, 14, was arrested. The driver was taken to Kings County Hospital, where attempts to save him failed, police sources said. The lieutenant was also taken to Kings County with minor injuries.

Posted in: auto dealership,East Brunswick,N.J.