The case against Victor Romero arrived in Manhattan Criminal Court on Oct. 22 as a manslaughter case, not a murder case. That reduction, made by the district attorney’s office before the arraignment, was among the things Koran Irvine’s family objected to when it was over.
Mr. Romero, 62, a retired New York City police detective, is charged with first-degree manslaughter in the Oct. 20 shooting death of Mr. Irvine, 46, on the George Washington Bridge. He was arrested on a murder charge, which, according to an NYPD statement quoted by NY1, “the DA’s office then downgraded to manslaughter.” ABC News reported that he pleaded not guilty. A charge is an accusation, and Mr. Romero is presumed innocent.
Judge Kevin McGrath set bail at $1 million, siding with prosecutors, Gothamist reported. NY1 described it as $1 million cash. The district attorney’s office will present the case to a grand jury, which will decide whether to indict.
The prosecution’s account
The facts below come from what Assistant District Attorney Matt Sears said in court and from a police affidavit described by ABC News. None of it has been tested at trial.
Mr. Irvine, an off-duty Con Edison worker, was driving home on the upper-level westbound lanes of the bridge at rush hour, around 7 p.m., according to police and prosecutors. According to the affidavit, surveillance video showed his blue Volkswagen Golf swerve into another lane and nearly collide with a black Range Rover. Prosecutors say Mr. Romero was driving it.
The Range Rover then sped up and followed Mr. Irvine’s car “closely, and in contrast to the greater distances that other vehicles maintained with respect to one another,” according to the affidavit as quoted by ABC. Prosecutors said Mr. Romero fired a shot from the driver’s seat. The bullet, they said, went through the rear passenger side of Mr. Irvine’s car and hit him behind the right shoulder.
Mr. Irvine’s car slowed, veered and stopped, according to the affidavit, while the Range Rover “sped around the victim’s vehicle, passing on the left side, and traveled at a high rate of speed across the bridge.” Mr. Irvine’s car then “lurched across four lanes of traffic” and hit the center median. First responders found him dead.
Mr. Sears called it a “particularly senseless killing,” Gothamist reported, and said Mr. Romero drove on into New Jersey without stopping.
Police said they found the car through its license plate, visible on the surveillance video. According to the affidavit, the Range Rover is registered to a company for which Mr. Romero works as a driver. Prosecutors said that when he was arrested the next day, he had a revolver that he told officers he always carried, and that police recovered two more handguns from his home. Gothamist reported that the guns were still being processed for forensic evidence.
Accounts of the arrest differ in detail. Gothamist reported that prosecutors said he was arrested at work in Manhattan. ABC, citing the NYPD, said he surrendered at the 33rd Precinct in upper Manhattan, was questioned and was then charged.
The defense
Mr. Romero did not speak during the proceeding, Gothamist reported. His lawyer, Alan Abramson, argued for lower bail. He called Mr. Romero a “hero police officer” with a “sterling record,” who was once struck during a shootout in which he kept others from being hurt. Mr. Abramson said his client has a wife and four children and had recently worked as a security director.
According to NY1, Mr. Romero retired from the NYPD in 2001 after he was wounded in an off-duty shootout.
The family
Mr. Irvine’s relatives were in the courtroom and spoke to reporters afterward.
“My brother is a hero, and he’s my hero,” his sister, Zeria Irvine, said, according to Gothamist. “I talked to him every single day on that commute.” To ABC, she described watching the defense speak for Mr. Romero: “I was shaking to look at the back of the head of the man who killed my brother and have his lawyers humanize him.”
His aunt, Gale Forde, told ABC that the family was disappointed there was no murder charge. “Instead of it being murder, it’s called manslaughter,” she said. Family members told ABC that Mr. Irvine did not know Mr. Romero.
Keith White, a lawyer for the family, said the bail was set “over our objection.” “We want Mr. Romero remanded to jail pending these charges. He is a flight risk,” he told NY1. To Gothamist he called it “a travesty, a miscarriage of justice.” Mr. White told ABC that the family has not been allowed to see the surveillance video described in the affidavit. Gothamist reported that the family is exploring a lawsuit.
Con Edison said its employees were “heartbroken” and called the shooting a “senseless act of violence.” According to ABC, a GoFundMe for Mr. Irvine’s widow and two children had raised more than $190,000 by Thursday.
What comes next
The next step is the grand jury, which could indict on manslaughter, on a different charge or not at all. The family has made clear it wants the case treated as a murder.
Featured image: The George Washington Bridge. Photo by Andromeda2064 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Leave a Reply