October 23, 2007
Officer Surrenders After Road-Rage Shooting
By AL BAKER
A New York City police officer turned himself in to colleagues on the street yesterday and said he might have shot and killed another driver in a predawn road-rage encounter in Upper Manhattan on Sunday, the authorities said.
The officer, Sean Sawyer, 34, approached a police radio car around 1 a.m. near Central Park, said he had chest pains and requested an ambulance. He then told the sergeant and an officer in the radio car that he believed he had been involved in a shooting while he was off-duty in East Harlem about 19 hours earlier in which a man was killed, the authorities said.
The road-rage shooting was similar to many such confrontations: The mundane discourtesy of jockeying for position while trying to exit off a busy highway led to an angry exchange of words from car window to car window. It was after 5 a.m., and the victim and his two passengers had been drinking, the police said.
But this argument, which started on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, did not end with shouts. Instead, it appears that the two drivers took turns chasing each other for several blocks after they exited in East Harlem, the police said.
One of the passengers in the victim’s car told investigators that the driver who died, Jayson Tirado, 25, raised his hand, pointed a finger at the officer and said something about “Mr. Ruger,” apparently referring to a make of semiautomatic handgun.
At that point, the officer is believed to have opened fire with his 9-millimeter mini-Glock handgun, the police said.
Up to three shots were fired, the police said. Mr. Tirado was hit once as the cars idled at 117th Street and First Avenue, but he managed to continue driving for about three blocks. He then stopped at 120th Street, and paramedics took him to Harlem Hospital Center, where he died.
Mr. Tirado’s two passengers, Jason Batista, 21, and Anthony Mencia, 23, said in interviews yesterday evening that the other driver did not identify himself as an officer before opening fire.
Officer Sawyer worked undercover, the authorities said. He joined the Police Department in 2004 and had been working in the narcotics division in Queens.
He was held yesterday at the 25th Precinct station house in Harlem before being released about 8 p.m. Earlier in the day, a prosecutor visited the station house, and officials were trying to determine whether to charge Officer Sawyer with a crime and whether he had acted in self defense, according to the authorities.
The officer was suspended from duty without pay and stripped of his gun and badge, said Stephen C. Worth, a lawyer for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. He could face charges related to the shooting itself, and he may face departmental discipline, possibly for leaving the scene, officials said.
Though the officer was not arrested, the case could go before a grand jury. But a spokesman for Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, declined to comment about whether the case would be presented to one.
After the shooting, Officer Sawyer went home. Then he saw the news later on Sunday and learned that someone had been shot and killed, said a person with direct knowledge of the officer’s account. The officer started “reaching out to people and ultimately turns himself in,” the person said.
Mr. Tirado was described as a physically slight man who was focused on raising his 4-year-old daughter, earning money by fixing up cars and doing other odd jobs. The news that he was shot by a police officer who fled the scene drew expressions of surprise and anger from friends and relatives.
Mr. Tirado’s mother, Irene, 54, stood in the doorway of her seventh-floor apartment in the Jacob Riis Houses, a public housing complex in the East Village, and said that her son was shot and left to die.
“Now, I find out it was a police officer,” she said, clutching photos of Mr. Tirado as she cried.
The confrontation unfolded on the southbound Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. About 5 a.m. on Sunday, a 27-year-old motorcyclist hit a light pole and was killed as he tried to switch lanes at 117th Street, the police said. All southbound traffic was then diverted from the drive.
Among those forced to exit were Mr. Tirado, driving a Honda Civic, and Officer Sawyer, in a yellow Nissan Xterra. They yelled at each other as they maneuvered at the 116th Street exit; Mr. Tirado was not letting the Nissan sport utility vehicle exit, the police said. “That is where this dispute starts,” one law enforcement official said.
Officer Sawyer, who had finished his shift at 7 p.m. on Saturday and was not due back to work until today, was alone in the Xterra, the police said. Mr. Tirado had two passengers in the Civic, the police said.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said that Mr. Tirado and his passengers “had been drinking.” In fact, he said, “there was one who stated that he was in such a state that he did not remember any of the events that happened.”
Officer Sawyer followed Mr. Tirado west on 116th Street, where more words were exchanged, one investigator said. The officer, at one point, apparently sped ahead of Mr. Tirado, who might have chased him down again, the investigator said.
Both vehicles eventually turned right onto northbound First Avenue. There, Mr. Tirado cut in front of the officer’s Nissan and hit his brakes. The officer swerved slightly to the right, and both cars came to a stop at about 117th Street, the police said.
The police said that one of Mr. Tirado’s passengers, in an interview, said that Mr. Tirado turned as if reaching behind his seat and made the Ruger remark. He then aimed his fingers in the shape of a gun, the police said. No gun was found, one investigator said.
Officials said that Mr. Tirado’s precise words about the Ruger were unclear. One official said that Mr. Tirado said, “I have a new Ruger for you,” before reaching back and raising his arm with his index finger and thumb in the shape of a gun.
It was unclear yesterday if the officer had been drinking or where he had been between the end of his shift on Saturday night and the shooting on Sunday.
Mr. Batista, one of the men in Mr. Tirado’s car, said that as Mr. Tirado exited the F.D.R. Drive, the Nissan tried to pull in front of them, but that Mr. Tirado did not let that happen. Then, at Pleasant Avenue, the Nissan’s driver pulled up to the driver’s side of the Honda, threatened the men and sped away.
He said the Nissan approached the Honda again at First Avenue and 117th Street and fired three shots through the back passenger side window of the Honda. The shots missed Mr. Batista, who was in the back seat, but hit Mr. Tirado. Mr. Mencia, the other passenger, was asleep in the front seat, Mr. Batista said.
“A minute,” Mr. Batista said. “In a minute all that happened, from getting off the exit to having my man shot in my hands.”
Nearly 19 hours later, at about 1 a.m. yesterday, Officer Sawyer walked up to two police officers from a housing unit who were near his home — a sergeant and a police officer in a car at Central Park West and 102nd Street — and said he was feeling some chest pains and wanted an ambulance, the police said.
The man identified himself as a police officer and he said he believed he had been involved in a shooting in which someone was killed, the authorities said. He gave the sergeant his mini-Glock. Officer Sawyer said he was giving them a gun used in the shooting, saying, “This is the gun,” said a law enforcement official. An ambulance arrived and took the officer to the hospital.
Late yesterday, four detectives removed a cardboard box from the officer’s apartment building.
Officer Sawyer was described by the person with knowledge of his account as married and the father of two sons. That person said he believed that Officer Sawyer had not been involved in an on-duty shooting. He is a born-again Christian, said a relative, who spoke outside the officer’s home in Upper Manhattan.
“He didn’t seem like he was a violent type; I’m shocked,” said Sonia Liberato, a neighbor who said that Officer Sawyer had lived in the area for several years. “He’s really good with the kids,” Ms. Liberato said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/nyregion/23rage.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin
Officer Surrenders After Road-Rage Shooting
By AL BAKER
A New York City police officer turned himself in to colleagues on the street yesterday and said he might have shot and killed another driver in a predawn road-rage encounter in Upper Manhattan on Sunday, the authorities said.
The officer, Sean Sawyer, 34, approached a police radio car around 1 a.m. near Central Park, said he had chest pains and requested an ambulance. He then told the sergeant and an officer in the radio car that he believed he had been involved in a shooting while he was off-duty in East Harlem about 19 hours earlier in which a man was killed, the authorities said.
The road-rage shooting was similar to many such confrontations: The mundane discourtesy of jockeying for position while trying to exit off a busy highway led to an angry exchange of words from car window to car window. It was after 5 a.m., and the victim and his two passengers had been drinking, the police said.
But this argument, which started on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, did not end with shouts. Instead, it appears that the two drivers took turns chasing each other for several blocks after they exited in East Harlem, the police said.
One of the passengers in the victim’s car told investigators that the driver who died, Jayson Tirado, 25, raised his hand, pointed a finger at the officer and said something about “Mr. Ruger,” apparently referring to a make of semiautomatic handgun.
At that point, the officer is believed to have opened fire with his 9-millimeter mini-Glock handgun, the police said.
Up to three shots were fired, the police said. Mr. Tirado was hit once as the cars idled at 117th Street and First Avenue, but he managed to continue driving for about three blocks. He then stopped at 120th Street, and paramedics took him to Harlem Hospital Center, where he died.
Mr. Tirado’s two passengers, Jason Batista, 21, and Anthony Mencia, 23, said in interviews yesterday evening that the other driver did not identify himself as an officer before opening fire.
Officer Sawyer worked undercover, the authorities said. He joined the Police Department in 2004 and had been working in the narcotics division in Queens.
He was held yesterday at the 25th Precinct station house in Harlem before being released about 8 p.m. Earlier in the day, a prosecutor visited the station house, and officials were trying to determine whether to charge Officer Sawyer with a crime and whether he had acted in self defense, according to the authorities.
The officer was suspended from duty without pay and stripped of his gun and badge, said Stephen C. Worth, a lawyer for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. He could face charges related to the shooting itself, and he may face departmental discipline, possibly for leaving the scene, officials said.
Though the officer was not arrested, the case could go before a grand jury. But a spokesman for Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, declined to comment about whether the case would be presented to one.
After the shooting, Officer Sawyer went home. Then he saw the news later on Sunday and learned that someone had been shot and killed, said a person with direct knowledge of the officer’s account. The officer started “reaching out to people and ultimately turns himself in,” the person said.
Mr. Tirado was described as a physically slight man who was focused on raising his 4-year-old daughter, earning money by fixing up cars and doing other odd jobs. The news that he was shot by a police officer who fled the scene drew expressions of surprise and anger from friends and relatives.
Mr. Tirado’s mother, Irene, 54, stood in the doorway of her seventh-floor apartment in the Jacob Riis Houses, a public housing complex in the East Village, and said that her son was shot and left to die.
“Now, I find out it was a police officer,” she said, clutching photos of Mr. Tirado as she cried.
The confrontation unfolded on the southbound Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. About 5 a.m. on Sunday, a 27-year-old motorcyclist hit a light pole and was killed as he tried to switch lanes at 117th Street, the police said. All southbound traffic was then diverted from the drive.
Among those forced to exit were Mr. Tirado, driving a Honda Civic, and Officer Sawyer, in a yellow Nissan Xterra. They yelled at each other as they maneuvered at the 116th Street exit; Mr. Tirado was not letting the Nissan sport utility vehicle exit, the police said. “That is where this dispute starts,” one law enforcement official said.
Officer Sawyer, who had finished his shift at 7 p.m. on Saturday and was not due back to work until today, was alone in the Xterra, the police said. Mr. Tirado had two passengers in the Civic, the police said.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said that Mr. Tirado and his passengers “had been drinking.” In fact, he said, “there was one who stated that he was in such a state that he did not remember any of the events that happened.”
Officer Sawyer followed Mr. Tirado west on 116th Street, where more words were exchanged, one investigator said. The officer, at one point, apparently sped ahead of Mr. Tirado, who might have chased him down again, the investigator said.
Both vehicles eventually turned right onto northbound First Avenue. There, Mr. Tirado cut in front of the officer’s Nissan and hit his brakes. The officer swerved slightly to the right, and both cars came to a stop at about 117th Street, the police said.
The police said that one of Mr. Tirado’s passengers, in an interview, said that Mr. Tirado turned as if reaching behind his seat and made the Ruger remark. He then aimed his fingers in the shape of a gun, the police said. No gun was found, one investigator said.
Officials said that Mr. Tirado’s precise words about the Ruger were unclear. One official said that Mr. Tirado said, “I have a new Ruger for you,” before reaching back and raising his arm with his index finger and thumb in the shape of a gun.
It was unclear yesterday if the officer had been drinking or where he had been between the end of his shift on Saturday night and the shooting on Sunday.
Mr. Batista, one of the men in Mr. Tirado’s car, said that as Mr. Tirado exited the F.D.R. Drive, the Nissan tried to pull in front of them, but that Mr. Tirado did not let that happen. Then, at Pleasant Avenue, the Nissan’s driver pulled up to the driver’s side of the Honda, threatened the men and sped away.
He said the Nissan approached the Honda again at First Avenue and 117th Street and fired three shots through the back passenger side window of the Honda. The shots missed Mr. Batista, who was in the back seat, but hit Mr. Tirado. Mr. Mencia, the other passenger, was asleep in the front seat, Mr. Batista said.
“A minute,” Mr. Batista said. “In a minute all that happened, from getting off the exit to having my man shot in my hands.”
Nearly 19 hours later, at about 1 a.m. yesterday, Officer Sawyer walked up to two police officers from a housing unit who were near his home — a sergeant and a police officer in a car at Central Park West and 102nd Street — and said he was feeling some chest pains and wanted an ambulance, the police said.
The man identified himself as a police officer and he said he believed he had been involved in a shooting in which someone was killed, the authorities said. He gave the sergeant his mini-Glock. Officer Sawyer said he was giving them a gun used in the shooting, saying, “This is the gun,” said a law enforcement official. An ambulance arrived and took the officer to the hospital.
Late yesterday, four detectives removed a cardboard box from the officer’s apartment building.
Officer Sawyer was described by the person with knowledge of his account as married and the father of two sons. That person said he believed that Officer Sawyer had not been involved in an on-duty shooting. He is a born-again Christian, said a relative, who spoke outside the officer’s home in Upper Manhattan.
“He didn’t seem like he was a violent type; I’m shocked,” said Sonia Liberato, a neighbor who said that Officer Sawyer had lived in the area for several years. “He’s really good with the kids,” Ms. Liberato said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/nyregion/23rage.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin
) down on his wedding day.
