A New York State Police officer shot and wounded a 22-year-old driver after a chase in Queens, officials said Saturday.
Officers Paul Cardona and Kevin Hanly were patrolling the eastbound Grand Central Parkaway in Corona at about 10:45 p.m. Friday when they tried to stop the suspect who appeared to be under the influence, identified as Wilton Ketter, the police said. authorities.
The 22-year-old driver failed to stop his white pickup truck and fled the scene, prompting a brief police chase that ended at a freeway-side gas station near LaGuardia Airport.
As the officers got out of their patrol car, Ketter apparently “continued to move his vehicle toward the officers” and tried to run them over, a State Police spokesperson said.
Cardona took out his service weapon and fired several times, injuring Ketter in the head, police sources reported. A 23-year-old female who was with the suspect in the passenger seat was not injured.
The subject was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens with serious injuries and bleeding from the skull, the sources said. Charges are still pending.
The officers were not injured, the representative said. So far the investigation into the shooting was continuing, the Daily News reported.
Ketter, who lives in Connecticut, is the second time in less than two months that he has nearly been killed during roadside confrontations with officers.
On March 7, the subject was speeding down Interstate 91 in New Haven when his BMW struck two other vehicles and spun, colliding with a fire truck responding to an unrelated auto accident.
The BMW exploded on fire. Rescuers removed him from the burning vehicle and rushed him to Yale New Haven Hospital with minor injuries. Two fire officers were injured.
Detectives found an illegal handgun in the car that was on fire, authorities said at the time. Ketter was charged with weapons possession and various vehicular offenses.
He was released after posting $20,000 bail.
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