QUEENS, NEW YORK -
A New York police detective shot and killed an unarmed man, whose hands,
a witness said, were on the steering wheel of his Honda, after he had
been pulled over early Thursday for cutting off two police trucks on the
Grand Central Parkway in Queens, the authorities said.
A Honda was pulled over on the Grand Central Parkway
early on Thursday because, the police said, it had cut off their
vehicles.
The shooting, which occurred at 5:15 a.m., was the latest in a series of
episodes in which police officers fatally shot or wounded civilians.
While the Police Department had explanations in the other instances, it
could not immediately provide one for the shooting on Thursday.
The detective, Hassan Hamdy, 39, a 14-year veteran assigned to the
Emergency Service Unit, fired one bullet through an open window of the
car, which his squad had just pulled over with the help of a second
police vehicle. The bullet struck the driver, Noel Polanco, 22, in the
abdomen. He was declared dead less than an hour later at New York
Hospital Queens.
Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, initially said there
were reports of movement inside the car, although he did not elaborate.
Mr. Browne said a small power drill was found on the floor on the
driver’s side, but he later appeared to play down the importance of that
information.
“We looked for a weapon, we didn’t find any; we found a drill,” he said
in a news briefing at Police Headquarters. “I’m not saying it played a
role. I’m just saying we looked for a weapon. We did not find a weapon.
The only thing we found was that drill.”
A passenger in Mr. Polanco’s car, Diane Deferrari, said in a phone
interview Thursday night that just before pulling the car over, officers
appeared irate that Mr. Polanco had cut them off. She said that one of
the officers — but not Detective Hamdy — stuck up his middle finger and
was screaming obscenities from one of the moving police trucks.
“As soon as we stopped — they were rushing the car,” Ms. Deferrari said. “It was like an army.”
She said a group of officers swarmed the car, yelling for the three
people in Mr. Polanco’s car to put their hands up. Mr. Polanco, whose
hands were still on the steering wheel, had no time to comply, Ms.
Deferrari said. At that instant, a shot rang out, and Mr. Polanco gasped
for air, she said.
“I felt the powder in my face,” she said.
Officers then dragged Mr. Polanco from the car and onto the highway,
where traffic was snarled, as early-morning commuters slowed to look,
she said.
“This is all a case of road rage on behalf of the N.Y.P.D. — that’s all this is,” she said.
Mr. Browne said late Thursday that Ms. Deferrari’s assertions would “be
investigated in the ongoing review of the shooting by the district
attorney and Internal Affairs.”
The shooting followed a string of fatal police encounters. In August,
the police shot and killed a 51-year-old man armed with a long kitchen
knife in Times Square; the police said the man had lunged at them.
Also in August, two officers fatally shot an armed gunman who had just
killed a former co-worker outside the Empire State Building. In that
shooting, nine bystanders were injured by bullets or ricochet fragments.
Last month, an officer inadvertently shot and killed a Bronx bodega
employee: he was fleeing armed robbers and collided with the officer,
whose gun accidentally discharged. And last week, officers with the
Emergency Service Unit killed a Harlem man in the doorway of his
apartment; the police said they had unsuccessfully tried to subdue him
and he had lunged at them with a knife.
Police union officials were perplexed by the shooting on the parkway.
“I see a spike in police shootings; I do,” said Edward Mullins,
president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association. “For the most part,
they are all coming back as justified. This is the first one that’s up
for question.”
Mr. Mullins said the reason for the shooting was unclear. He said the
shooting, like any other, would be thoroughly investigated by the Police
Department and the Queens district attorney.
“It’s tragic and unfortunate,” he said. “Things like this happen. It’s sad. It’s not supposed to happen.”
“I’ve never met a police officer who went to work to deliberately be
involved in this type of incident,” he added. “My understanding of this
officer is that he is highly thought of in the department.”
The episode began early Thursday at the Ice NYC in Astoria, Queens,
where Mr. Polanco, who worked at a local Honda dealership, also worked
part time, in the hookah part of the bar, where he filled and served
tobacco waterpipes. He was also a member of the New York Army National
Guard.
Mr. Polanco, who lived with his mother, arrived at the club around 3
a.m., the club’s manager, Moez Abouelnaga, said. “He came to pick up the
bartender,” he said, referring to Ms. Deferrari; they lived in the same
apartment building. “Anytime you need something, he would never say
no.”
Brian Benstock, the general manager at Paragon Honda on Northern
Boulevard, where Mr. Polanco worked, said: “He was a hard-working guy,
an active-duty military guy — disciplined and polite. He did what he was
supposed to do.”
Mr. Browne, the police spokesman, said the bartender, Ms. Deferrari, who
wrapped up work sometime after 4 a.m., had served a Hennessy Cognac to
Mr. Polanco and her friend, an off-duty police officer, Vanessa
Rodriguez, also at the bar. Officer Rodriguez was on restricted duty
because she was arrested in June and accused of shoplifting.
Nelson De La Rosa, a party planner at the club, said Mr. Polanco was not
drunk. “He had a beer and a hookah,” he said. “I was sitting next to
him since he got there.”
After leaving the club around 5 a.m., the police said, Mr. Polanco, Ms.
Deferrari and Officer Rodriguez got into his car and he drove onto the
parkway.
Less than 15 minutes later, the police said, the black Honda that Mr.
Polanco was driving crossed from the right lane into the middle lane and
squeezed between the two police trucks, which were from the Emergency
Service Unit. The officers in the trucks had just executed a search
warrant in the Bronx and were on their way to Brooklyn to execute
another warrant, the police said.
The Honda, which the police said was speeding, then shifted to the left
lane and began to tailgate a car, the police said. Mr. Polanco then
swung back between the two police vehicles, and the officers in them
turned on their sirens, Mr. Browne said.
The police trucks sandwiched the car, forcing it to slow down and stop, the police said.
Just before Mr. Polanco stopped the car, Ms. Deferrari was arguing with him, urging him to slow down, Mr. Browne said.
“She was frightened by his driving,” Mr. Browne said.
At the stop, along a median of the busy parkway, two officers approached
the car, a sergeant at the driver’s side and the detective at the
passenger side, where the window was open, the police said. Ms.
Deferrari, who was seated there, later told the police that she had
heard the officers tell those inside the car to show their hands.
Officer Rodriguez was asleep in the back seat when the gun went off, the
police said. The blast woke her, and she identified herself as an
officer, the police said.
Mr. Browne said Ms. Deferrari told investigators that when the officers
ordered her to put her hands up, she complied, but Mr. Polanco, when
last she looked, had his hands on the steering wheel.
“What she said was that she complied with the officer’s directions to
raise their hands,” Mr. Browne said. “She said the last time she looked
at the driver, his hands were still on the wheel.”
At that point, Detective Hamdy fired a single shot through the open
passenger window, striking Mr. Polanco. Mr. Browne said he did not know
exactly where the sergeant, approaching the driver’s side, was standing
when the shot was fired. Mr. Browne said that what prompted the shooting
was unknown, as investigators had not yet interviewed Detective Hamdy.
In all police-involved shootings, investigators are barred from talking
to the officers who fired their weapon to prevent them from later
claiming immunity from prosecution for what they said in an interview.
Investigators can, however, interview officers who were at the scene but
not directly involved in the shooting.
Detective Hamdy, who joined the force in 1998, had never fired his gun
on duty before, the police said. He had worked his way up to the elite
Emergency Service Unit, where he had been recently assigned to a team of
highly trained officers who specialize in apprehending violent felony
suspects.
Late Thursday night, friends and co-workers of Mr. Polanco gathered
outside Ice NYC, where people signed photos of Mr. Polanco that were
taped to a lamppost. Friends brought flowers, and a cardboard box filled
with candles rested outside, along with a hookah that some took turns
puffing from.
