Oct 23, 2007 9:32 am US/Eastern
Officer Suspended After Road Rage Shooting
Shot, Killed Motorist After Apparent Traffic Dispute, Then Left Scene
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
A 34-year old undercover narcotics officer spent all day Monday trying to explain to police why he fired at car on First Avenue, killing the driver, then fled the scene.
The big question: Will now be a defendant himself in a homicide?
Friends and family of victim Jayson Tirado set up a candlelight memorial, trying to come to terms with what's happened. The 25-year old was gunned down in an apparent road rage encounter with off-duty police officer, Sean Sawyer.
"Yeah we're all angry. His mother's angry, I'm angry, his daughter doesn't even understand what happened here and we have to explain it to her as soon as she's old enough to understand," said Ricardo Ramos, the victim's cousin.
It all started on the southbound FDR as traffic was being diverted at 116th street. Six blocks after the exit ramp merge things turned deadly.
There are two versions. Tirado's friends say the officer's yellow SUV tried to cut it's way into a caravan of four cars and that driver became angry, pulled out a gun and fired.
In the second version, the officer says he managed to cut in, and was chased. The driver of the other car then pretended to have a gun, and that's why he responded the way he did.
Either way, the ending is the same, with one man dead, and the shooter leaving the scene.
The undercover narcotics officer turned himself and a weapon in to a marked patrol car nearly twenty hours later.
"He then makes a statement that he may have shot somebody," Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
There are two big concerns in this case, the first is that the officer left the scene. The other is that the fatal shot was fired from behind.
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