NY state trooper shoots driver following Queens pursuit on Grand Central Parkway
A New York state trooper shot and wounded a 22-year-old driver following a car chase through Queens, police said Saturday.
Troopers Paul Cardona and Kevin Hanly were patrolling the eastbound Grand Central Parkway in Corona about 10:45 p.m. on Friday when they tried to pull over suspected drunk driver Wilton Ketter, authorities said.
Ketter, 22, wouldn’t pull over his white SUV and sped off, sparking a brief police pursuit that ended at a gas station just off the highway near LaGuardia Airport.
When the troopers got out of their patrol car, Ketter “continued to move his vehicle toward the troopers” and tried to ram them, a spokesman for the State Police said.
Cardona pulled his weapon and fired multiple times, hitting Ketter in the head, law enforcement sources said. A 23-year-old woman sitting in the passenger seat wasn’t injured.
Ketter was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens with serious injuries and bleeding on the brain, sources said. Charges were pending.
The troopers were not injured, the spokesman said. The investigation into the shooting was continuing, officials said.
Ketter lives in Connecticut. It was the second time in two months he was nearly killed during roadway clashes with first responders.
On March 7, Ketter was speeding along Interstate 91 in New Haven when his BMW sideswiped two vehicles and spun out, crashing into a fire truck responding to an unrelated car accident.
The BMW exploded into flames. First responders pulled him from the burning car and rushed him to Yale New Haven Hospital with minor injuries. Two firefighters were also injured.
Investigators found an illegal handgun in the burning car, officials said at the time. Ketter was charged with weapons possession and several vehicular offenses.
He was released after paying a $20,000 bail. As of Saturday, the Connecticut charges were still pending.
