New York Local News

NEW YORK (CBS) ― The incident happened early Sunday morning. Five A.M. Really more like late Saturday night. But here we are, days later. Still talking about it.

About the two cars, their occupants, getting into a stupid macho thing with each other. Actually, one of the cars, a purple Honda Civic that the owner called "the Purple Monster", was part of a group of three cars, which contained a total of nine friends from the Lower East Side, who had been hanging out, as they liked to do, meeting uptown at an abandoned waterfront restaurant by the Hudson, where guys like them, and young women, blasted music but mostly checked out the custom jobs on each other's cars, and talked engines and carburetors. The war of tempers on the FDR between the three friends in the purple Honda and the driver of the yellow Nissan Xterra SUV began first, over who was going to yield to whom as they were squeezing off the FDR Drive at 116th Street. And then, cutting each other off as they zoomed up 116th to First. Making the right, and still trading insults up the avenue, as they got to 117th. But then it spirals badly into something else, when the yellow Nissan pulls up alongside the rear and passenger side of the purple Honda, and the driver of the Nissan SUV fires shots into the other car's window. Anthony Mencia, 23, has been sleeping off the night that included drinking in the front passenger seat of the purple Honda. And actually sleeps through most of what is happening. But in the backseat Jason Batista, 21, is wide awake, and sees the bullet go through the window to his right, somehow, just missing him. But: hitting his friend driving. Jayson Tirado, 25. The shot --- perhaps more than one; it seems three rounds were fired --- kills him. Jayson manages to keep driving from 117th to 120th Street. Where he finally dies.

The yellow Nissan takes off.

We now know the driver of the Nissan walks up to two uniform officers in a patrol car about 20 hours later, around 1A.M. the next morning, Monday. By Central Park West and 102nd Street. The man says he's having chest pains. Then says he thinks he shot someone earlier. Identifies himself as a police officer. And turns over his weapon. A Glock. He is brought to the 25th Precinct, which is handling the investigation into the shooting the day before on First Avenue. The officer, who was off-duty when he fired the gun, is Sean Sawyer, 34. An undercover narcotics cop assigned to Queens, with four years on the job.

Because Jayson Tirado at one point held up his hand at Sawyer during the high speed cat-and-mouse between the two cars with his finger pointing like a gun the way kids do when they're playing, and then he says pretends to reach back as though looking for something, Sawyer tells investigators he thought Tirado actually was going for a gun. No gun, no knife, nothing was ever found; and both Jason Batista and Anthony Mencia, the two survivors in the purple Honda, are searched when cops get to the shooting scene and they are brought to the precinct. No weapons. But this is Officer Sawyer's story. And the claim of self-defense allows him to walk without being arrested. Until the grand jury either indicts him for the shooting. Or, lets him go.

This is the single biggest complaint I have been hearing from people since this all happened. "How can he not be arrested?" "If this were you or me…"

I spoke with someone from the Manhattan D.A.'s office. And she walked me through the following argument she herself had with an assistant D.A. in her office:

"Okay, Officer Sawyer left the scene of a…"

Finish the sentence.

"Shooting," I said.

"Right. And unfortunately, that's not a crime. 'Leaving the scene of an accident' is a crime. There was no accident here to walk away from."

"But down the road, when he comes up before a 'departmental' [the internal police trial on what he did], he will almost certainly be nailed (and his career will be over) for leaving the scene, among other things."

"Right, but the [police] department has different standards than what we must adhere to in a court of law. Think about it: when a mugger shoots somebody and runs, and we catch them two days later: have you ever heard of a charge of 'leaving the scene of a shooting'? No. Because there is no such crime. The shooting is a crime that has to be investigated. And that's what the grand jury is going to do."

"But until the grand jury's work is over --- and by the way, when will this grand jury begin to look into what Sawyer did?"

"Well, we're in the middle of a term with a panel now…it's not likely they will get this…maybe mid-November. But it could be later."

"They might start mid-November, but depending on whether all the evidence is ready to be presented, it could be later?"

"Right."

"So meantime, because he claimed 'self-defense', Officer Sawyer walks."

"Yes."

"Does the D.A. [Robert Morgenthau] understand the perception of that? That people are claiming a double standard? That people, frankly, are ticked off? That they're saying sarcastically, 'Oh, from now on, everybody, the muggers, the burglars, everybody, say, "It was self-defense," and you won't get arrested until you're indicted by a grand jury.' "

She exhales slowly, in a very tired way. "Yes, we're having those arguments even among ourselves. I had that argument. But until the law is changed…"

And I'm sure, since Officer Sawyer has a job with obvious roots in the community, and two children and a wife, the assumption has to be, he doesn't exactly pose a risk of flight. They don't think he's leaving town. So…

To a majority of people in this area, unless some truly amazing new information comes out, if Sean Sawyer is not indicted, they will scream. And when I talked to Jason Batista and Anthony Mencia, they both said, very believably, Sawyer never identified himself as an officer. That if he had, all three would have acted differently. And stopped (by the way, Batista also said that Monday morning, detectives called him back to the 25th Precinct. And asked, "Do you think the shooter could have been a cop?" Wonder why…?).
Batista and Mencia told me they will go to the grand jury.

Earlier this week, I talked to Irene Tirado. Jayson's mother. You can imagine the state this already frail woman (she suffers from asthma, and a heart condition) is in. But she told me something that, sadly, cynically, illuminates yet another aspect of how screwed up human nature --- at least, the nature of some humans
--- can be.

Jayson Tirado made a few extra bucks working on cars and motorcycles (remember, that night, they were hanging out with other buffs at the abandoned marina in Dyckman, by the Hudson). As friends are holding on to each other, crying, outside and in the hallways of the Riis Houses on the Lower East Side, off the FDR Drive around 10th Street, where all these friends are from…where you have to walk past candles, and flowers, and cards…and where signs ask for donations to pay for the funeral, and maybe, leave something for Jayson's four year old daughter Jayleen, called "Jay Jay"…this guy walks past all that, and up to the mother's apartment. Says Jayson was supposed to do a job on his car. That he gave Jayson an advance on the work. 'Hey I'm sorry he's dead, but: where's my money?'

She threw him out.

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