NYPD supervisors added to lawsuit in Pelham shooting
Jonathan BandlerJoseph Felice was hit six times when the officer, Brendan Cronin, opened fire.
Two New York City police training supervisors have been added to federal lawsuits brought by a pair of Westchester men who were shot at two years ago by a drunk NYPD officer at a traffic light in Pelham after he attended a day of training.
Lawyers for New York City had opposed adding the defendants, Lt. Kevin Brown and Sgt. Joseph Simonetti, but U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled Thursday the plaintiffs could make the argument that the supervisors shared responsibility by “furthering an atmosphere of indifference to alcoholism by police trainees under their supervision.”
“The public should be able to expect zero tolerance for alcohol abuse by police officers, particularly while on-duty, driving cars, or in possession of their service weapons,” said Debra Cohen, a lawyer for Joseph Felice, who was hit six times when the officer, Brendan Cronin, opened fire. “If the NYPD’s own trainers aren’t enforcing this, then who is?”
Felice and Robert Borrelli were heading home from a recreational hockey game April 29, 2014, when Borrelli stopped at a red light on Lincoln Avenue. Cronin, who was standing near his parked car in the next lane, got his Glock 9mm from the back seat and fired 14 shots at Borrelli’s car, seriously wounding Felice. Borrelli was not hit and sped off to take Felice to the hospital.
Cronin, who drove off but was arrested moments later, had stopped in Pelham after leaving the Alehouse, a City Island bar where he had consumed as many as 10 drinks following a day of training at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx on how to conduct high-intensity car stops.
Cronin pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted murder in September and was sentenced in April to nine years in state prison.
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According to the lawsuit, Cronin, Sgt. Edward Ching and three other officers, Ryan Bracconeri, William Concannon and Jeffrey Griffin, first drank at lunch during a break in the training. They then returned to Alehouse afterwards, and the officers failed to stop Cronin from leaving in his car, the lawsuit alleges.
A spokesman for the New York City Law Department declined to comment. In court papers last week, city lawyer Mark Zuckerman argued that the supervisors should not be held responsible for Cronin’s behavior.
The shooting occurred five hours after the training concluded. Neither Brown nor Simonetti knew the officers had consumed alcohol during lunch or afterwards and had not seen Cronin once training ended, Zuckerman wrote.
“There is no evidence that these proposed defendants knew that Cronin was going to drink after the training ended, much less drink excessively and commit an act of violence,” Zuckerman argued.
The lawsuit, naming the city, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, Cronin, Ching, Alehouse, and unnamed officers, was first filed a year ago. It alleged that the city and its police officials had failed to address “longstanding” substance abuse problems among NYPD officers.
Bratton was dismissed from the lawsuit in November.
Twitter: @jonbandler