Man murders police officer, then pulls a driver from his car and shoots him in the head on Cross Island Parkway

(Note: comments begin here.)

It seems to me that the murdered police officer, Arthur Lopez, was extremely careless. The perp had fled the scene of an accident. Obviously he was potentially dangerous. But Officer Lopez, without his gun drawn, simply walked up to the perp’s driver’s side window as though he was giving a traffic ticket.

The story was in yesterday’s New York Post:

Cop killed by madman who then guns down innocent driver on Cross Island

A deranged parolee executed a Nassau County cop during a traffic stop in Queens yesterday, blew away an innocent highway motorist during his getaway, and then tried to kill himself as police closed in, authorities said.

Darrell Fuller, 33, shot himself in the neck and shoulder before he was collared last night for the rampage, which began when he gunned down Emergency Services Officer Arthur Lopez, 29, near a Mobil station on Jamaica Avenue and 241st Street in Bellerose Terrace at 11 a.m., authorities said.

Darrell%20Fuller.jpg
Darrell Fuller

Lopez and his partner, Clarence Hudson, had followed Fuller to the station after spotting him fleeing the scene of a car accident on Northern Boulevard in Great Neck, authorities said.

Lopez, an eight-year vet, got out of his patrol truck and went up to Fuller’s driver’s-side window.

They had a “short exchange”—with Lopez asking him for his driver’s license and registration—when Fuller allegedly sprang from the car and opened fire.

Lopez, who was not wearing a bulletproof vest, was struck at least once in the chest.

Fuller then sped off in his Honda, his parents’ car. It had at least two flat tires, presumably from the hit-run, sources said.

Hudson stayed at the scene to try to save his fallen comrade. Lopez was rushed to North Shore-LIJ Hospital in New Hyde Park, where he was pronounced dead. He had just attended Monday’s funeral of a fellow Nassau cop fatally hit by a car on the Long Island Expressway last week.

“[Lopez’s] murderer should hear the screams of his mother and understand what he did today,” said Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano.

After allegedly gunning down Lopez, Fuller drove onto the Cross Island Parkway. He went two miles, then ditched his crippled Honda in traffic and attacked a motorist who had pulled over to talk on his cellphone.

Fuller dragged grandfather Raymond Facey from his Toyota Camry and put a bullet in his head as horrified drivers looked on, authorities said.

Facey, 52, a father of four who went by “Brian,” had been talking to one of his adult twin daughters at the time, his family said.

“She heard him say, ‘Who’s chasing you?’ Then she heard him make a frightened, ‘Ahh,’ ” said his stricken brother-in-law, Joslyn Cameron, 53, of Brooklyn.

“They were discussing getting cheap plane tickets to Jamaica for Christmas. [His] mother is celebrating her 80th birthday there.”

Fuller left Facey’s body splayed out on the busy parkway, officials said. The killer then drove the Toyota to 114th Road and 223rd Street in Queens Village, where he ditched it and fled on foot, authorities said.

An off-duty NYPD cop saw Fuller on the street but was unarmed and called for backup that was too slow to arrive, law-enforcement sources said.

Cops finally caught up with Fuller near 173rd Street and 111th Avenue in Jamaica at 6:30 p.m. in a red, parked minivan that had been reported stolen last week, sources said. He had shot himself in his leg and shoulder, they said.

It’s unclear at what point he shot himself while fleeing; police have yet to recover the gun, sources said.

Witnesses said they saw the perp lying lying half out the door.

“We saw an undercover cop get out of his car yelling, ‘Get out of the car!’ ” said Michael Ashby, 16.

Fuller was arrested and taken to Jamaica Hospital in “guarded” condition, with charges pending.

Sources said Fuller had just left a doctor’s office after receiving dialysis because of a bad kidney when he first got into the hit-run.

While cops were looking for him after the shooting, Fuller stopped to play hoops at a court on Merrick Boulevard in St. Albans, said a cousin, Lashonda Jones.

Mangano called Lopez “a true hero—a very decorated police officer” with more than 10 citations.

He was even a hero to his neighbors.

Originally from Queens, Lopez moved to Babylon, LI, four years ago and made it a point to greet all newcomers to the area, they said.

Colleen Donovan said Lopez brought her a pie when she moved in last year.

“He couldn’t have been any nicer,” she said. “It’s just awful.”

He had recently bought a boat he called Saltshaker and was just beginning to enjoy taking it out, neighbors and colleagues said.

“His mother was so proud of him,” said her Queens neighbor Grace De Suarez, 43. “At first, his mother wasn’t too happy to hear he wanted to be a cop, but she accepted it and supported him.

“She worried, but she never imagined his life would be cut short so soon and so sudden.”

Lopez is the second Nassau County cop killed in the line of duty in as many weeks. Officer Joseph Olivieri, 43, was fatally struck by a passing SUV while rushing to the aid of a driver who’d been in a crash near Exit 35 on the LIE.

Lopez’s neighbor Mike Cullen, 51, said the cop knew Olivieri and mourned at his funeral.

“We talked about Olivieri’s death on Saturday and what a loss it was,” Cullen said.

“And a few days later, we lose him. It’s just tragic.”

Fuller previously served five years for attempted murder, according to court records.

He was busted on Oct. 3, 2004, after pointing a handgun at the victim’s head, then firing three rounds, striking the victim in the back and buttocks. He got out in 2009 on a conditional release, then busted again, this time for possession and sale of drug.

But he did just nine months on a sentence that should have put him behind bars until 2015, officials griped. He was paroled in May 2011. “One can only wonder how an animal like this was roaming the streets with a rap sheet like this,” Mangano seethed.

Nassau County PBA President James Carver said, “We’re going to be asking for an investigation for the parole board.”

The slain cop’s partner, Hudson, “did the best he could,” said his ex-wife, Maryann.

“If anybody could have saved him, it would be him,” she said.

- end of initial entry -


Ed H. writes:

Why do they use the term “madman” to describe Fuller? Has he been diagnosed as schizophrenic? Has he spent time in a mental hospital? Or could it be that Fuller is indistinguishable from your average street/ghetto black? If you had talked to Fuller before this shooting, would you have the impression that he was unusually quirky, or a fairly typical representative of black delusion, ignorance, and paranoia?

Inversely, if Fuller acted on an insane assessment of reality which turned a traffic stop into a multiple murder, how dangerous are the other blacks that share the same delusional world view with Fuller?

Is Derbyshire’s Law of Black Exclusion capable of accommodating all this? I.e. “when driving, walking or talking in any public or private area be fully prepared to have your life taken from you without

warning by any black that may be within striking distance”. Isn’t a war zone more orderly and predictable than this? Are we starting to understand Apartheid from a new angle?

BD writes:

Thanks for the link to the NY Post article about Darrell Fuller. According to the story, Fuller:

- Left a dialysis clinic where he was being treated for kidney failure.

- Got involved in an auto accident and then fled the scene.

- Killed the police officer who stopped him.

- Ditched his crippled car and then killed an innocent motorist so he could steal his vehicle.

- Stopped for a game of basketball.

- Shot himself twice, not fatally, when the cops finally closed in.

We also learn that Fuller has previous convictions for attempted murder and drug crimes, but served only nine months of a five year sentence.

Lots of good stuff here, but what interests me is the author’s use of the word “deranged,” which my dictionary gives as a synonym for “insane.” Clearly Fuller was not insane. He was many things—stupid, thuggish, murderous, violent, criminal—but he wasn’t insane, and there is no history given of any treatment or confinement for a mental disorder. What Fuller does have is a history of violent criminal behavior, unfortunately, rather leniently dealt with. The reporter seems to be trying to exculpate Fuller’s horrible actions by implying they were due, at least in part, to some undefined mental condition. Clearly the reporter would like us to believe that no rational individual could commit such random, terrible crimes—it must be due to some sort of derangement. In fact, this sort of behavior is entirely consistent with Fuller’s past actions. To the liberal mind, hideous crimes, especially when committed by members of pet minority groups, are never called what they really are. They are “senseless tragedies” or “random acts of violence,” or the criminals, as in this case, are “deranged.”

Ed H. writes:

I was thinking of Darrell Fuller, the black man who “inexplicably” turned a traffic stop into a murder spree. In my earlier e-mail to VFR my sheer exasperation about the frequency of these events brought me to the conclusion that the only way out is hardline segregation.

The next moment my doorbell rang and it was the local black contractor come to work on my driveway. He is bespectacled and humble, and looks like a young Clarence Thomas. He is painfully honest and has the courteous good manners of the Old South. He has a wife whom he loves and four children and is a devout Jehovah’s Witness. But this is a rural area, where the same culture has ruled for 300 years. So what is it that produces Darrell Fullers in abundance and my black contractor friend in such scarcity? The only answer is the ruling liberal ideology, which is relatively weak here in this corner of the rural South, and tyrannically entrenched in places like New York City.

A reader writes:

I’m incensed over this entire incident. From the fact that Fuller was roaming the streets to Lopez’s lack of body armor, and on and on.

A question on my mind: Did Officers Lopez and Hudson radio their “pursuit” or were they simply following Fuller. Note that Hudson was driving the ESU unit with Lopez in the right seat calling the shots apparently.

My MAIN concern is what the hell was Hudson doing while Lopez approached Fuller’s vehicle on the passenger side? Did he just remained in the car watching this unfold? Two officers always approach a suspect vehicle one on either side to keep the subject psychologically off balance. Had Hudson approached Fuller’s car along with Lopez Fuller might not have pulled his weapon so quickly. And if he had, Hudson could have dropped Fuller in an instant. The entire scenario needs investigation. Hudson needs to make a full accounting of his actions during the stop/investigation methinks.

October 26

Mark Eugenikos writes:

Let’s see what we have here. A day in life of an ordinary 33-year-old man, already in prison twice for attempted murder and drug-dealing: Go to kidney dialysis, crash a car, flee, shoot a cop dead, flee again, shoot a passer-by dead and steal his car, stop by to play some hoops, go sit in a stolen van, and then shoot yourself. I don’t see anything unusual—doesn’t everybody do that? We don’t want to be judgmental, it’s not nice.

Henry S. writes:

I am writing about the the killing of Officer Lopez. I agree with you totally that he was careless in approaching Fuller. But perhaps he did so because this took place in Bellerose Terrace, a majority white/Asian neighborhood. It’s not “the hood.” Or maybe, just maybe, Lopez was going by the book.

As accepting as I am of our current state of total depravity, I cannot contain my outrage that Fuller was at liberty. He served four years for attempted murder. [LA replies: Didn’t the article say he just served several months for it?]

Today I scanned the SPBDL website, something that (maybe it’s my liberal upbringing) still makes me feel guilty. It’s an informative site. Kersey links to a news article about the murder of a white girl by a black thug, in which a black law officer says, “Some people just need to be locked up. They are not going to change.” He said this about a black thug suspect who was on the streets after an arms-length rap sheet that included cruelty to children. A man who was convicted of cruelty to children was released, and predictably, killed a child-like looking white woman.

My take on that would be “Some people just need to be killed.”

LA replies:

I will quote again the immortal and profoundly non-liberal saying of radio host Bob Grant (my quotation is not exact): “When someone has given notice that he is an enemy of society, he must be removed from society.”


Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 25, 2012 11:13 AM | Send
    

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