Two NYPD officers are accused of covering up a drunk-driving crash involving one of their own.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Two NYPD officers are accused of covering up a drunk-driving crash involving another officer
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According to the NYPD, it initiated the investigation and referred the case to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
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Both men pleaded not guilty, according to officials<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you saw today is another overreach by Alvin Bragg,\u201d Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said, referring to the Manhattan district attorney.<\/p>\n
Hendry spoke alongside officers who gathered outside the courtroom to show support for the defendants.<\/p>\n
\u201c[We’ve] got your back. Everybody behinds us. We got your back,\u201d Hendry said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say the case began with a 911 call reporting a crash involving a possibly intoxicated driver near West 26th Street and Eighth Avenue in October 2024.<\/p>\n
Officers Michael Caligiuiri and Ryan McLoughlin responded to the call. The driver, later identified as off-duty officer Eli Garcia, allegedly showed a police badge, according to officials.<\/p>\n
Court records allege one officer positioned his body camera away from the driver as the two officers communicated via personal texts.<\/p>\n
Records also show Garcia eventually drove off and was found intoxicated hours later. He ultimately pleaded guilty to driving while impaired and resigned from the NYPD.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are two hard-working New York City police officers, and their reputations are being tarnished by this DA\u2019s office,\u201d Hendry said.<\/p>\n
The NYPD says it initiated the investigation and referred the case to the Manhattan District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Both defendants are suspended without pay. But Hendry says the courts have already administered justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis case was resolved a year ago and the person [who] was involved was arrested, was prosecuted,\u201d Hendry said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors disagreed, saying the case is about accountability when officers are accused of protecting one another instead of enforcing the law. Both men pleaded not guilty, according to officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two NYPD officers are accused of covering up a drunk-driving crash involving one of their own. What You…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[387,25,388,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,308,27],"class_list":["post-140707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-louis-finley","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}