A 22-year-old man died in East Harlem on Saturday, May 2, after a long wait for an ambulance ended with NYPD officers loading him into a patrol car and racing him to the hospital themselves. The NYPD has launched a formal review because the man’s death happened while he was in police custody.
How a 911 call turned into a 40-minute ordeal
According to the New York Daily News, officers were dispatched to East 116th Street near Lexington Avenue around 5:40 p.m. after a 911 caller reported that a man might have overdosed and appeared emotionally disturbed.
Police requested an ambulance at about 5:44 p.m. and called again at 6:05 p.m. when medics still had not arrived, the report states. By roughly 6:25 p.m., with no FDNY EMS crew on scene, officers decided they had waited long enough. They put the man in a patrol car and drove him to Harlem Hospital, arriving around 6:29 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 6:56 p.m.
All told, police sources say the encounter stretched for close to 40 minutes before the decision was made to transport him in the squad car.
Why the Force Investigation Division is on the case
Any time someone dies while in NYPD custody, the case is routed to the department’s Force Investigation Division, and that is what is happening here. The NYPD’s public use-of-force guidance notes that FID investigates incidents in which a subject dies or is seriously injured, and that its reviews can draw on body-worn camera footage, supervisor reports and other evidence…