A male driver was fatally shot by police after a high-speed chase from New York City to Long Island, with seven police officers and a civilian injured and taken to hospital, police said.
Officers from the New York Police Department (NYPD) attempted to pull the driver over in the Jamaica neighborhood in Queens shortly after 11 p.m. on Friday. The individual then attempted to ram the two police officers before fleeing the scene, according to Patrick Ryder, commissioner of the Nassau County police department.
Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Ryder said Nassau County officers boxed in the driver near the junction of Merrick Avenue and Sunrise Highway, but the man rammed two further police cars, knocking off the doors and forcing two officers to dive out of the way. The driver then fled further down the road.
The suspect collided with another Nassau County police car on the highway and crossed over to the opposite lane before crossing back again and hitting a civilian car.
“It was reckless. He jumped into oncoming traffic on Sunrise Highway, he’s ramming police cars, he’s ramming civilian cars, and he lost control of his own vehicle,” Ryder said.
“I don’t have the speeds yet, but when we pull the box from the cars, we’ll know what speeds we were going to estimate his speeds.”
The chase ended at Hicksville Road and Sunrise Highway in Massapequa, Long Island, when the driver lost control of his vehicle and stopped on a berm in front of a 7/11 store. The driver did not comply with officers’ orders for him to get out of the vehicle, leading to a shooting incident, Ryder said.
The driver of the speeding car died in the incident and was brought to a local hospital. Five Nassau County police officers and a civilian also received treatment at a local hospital, and two NYPD officers were treated in the city area. One officer was physically injured when their police car was rammed by the vehicle, two further officers were injured when diving for safety, and the officers involved in the shooting incident are being treated for trauma, Ryder said.
Authorities are collecting and reviewing video footage from multiple locations along Sunrise Highway, New York City, and the location of the shooting, while police body camera footage is also being reviewed, he said.
The driver’s name was not immediately released. Police notified the state attorney general and are investigating the incident with the homicide unit, Ryder said.