Investigators are still trying to understand the tragic sequence of events that resulted in the fatal friendly fire incident on Long Island Saturday night, when a plainclothes Nassau County police officer was fatally shot by an MTA officer. Officer Glenn Gentile, 33, has been on the force at least six years and works with the MTA Police Department's Nassau district; the Daily News reports that Officer Geoffrey Breitkopf was a 12-year police veteran on Long Island and member of the elite Bureau of Special Operations. Around 8:30 p.m. their paths fatally crossed outside the home of self-described satanist Anthony DiGeronimo.
DiGeronimo had been going around the neighborhood of Massapequa Park dressed in Army fatigues and a white hockey mask, terrorizing residents and slashing cars with a giant knife. Two officers from Nassau's Seventh precinct responded and confronted DiGeronimo, who ran into the house he shared with his parents and hid in a back bedroom. After taunting the officers through the bedroom door, he burst out wielding a knife and was shot dead.
Gentile heard about the incident at the nearby Massapequa Park Long Island Rail Road and went to the house to provide backup. He was standing outside the home when Breitkopf arrived at the scene in an unmarked car and approached the residence carrying a shotgun. It's unclear if either officer identified himself, nor is it clear what prompted Gentile to shoot, but he fired one round at Breitkopf, fatally wounding him in his right side. Nassau police commissioner Lawrence Mulvey says Breitkopf was not holding the firearm in a poised-to-shoot position, Newsday reports.
"The 64,000-dollar question," according to Mulvey, is what words, if any, were exchanged between the officers. He speculated yesterday that Gentile believed "there was a danger afoot and misconstrued the circumstances," and said that while an investigation was underway, charges against Gentile were unlikely. "The poor kid is an emotional wreck," a source tells the Daily News, which reports the Gentile is the son of a retired Nassau detective and has a twin brother who's also an MTA cop.
Breitkopf, a father of two, is mourned by devastated family, friends, and colleagues. NCPD Bureau of Special Operations Officer Sean Paul tells the News, "We're not going to fill that hole... Since day one he was dedicated and determined to be the best cop he could be. He was the tip of our spear." According to Newsday, Breitkopf was the first Nassau officer killed in a "friendly fire" shooting since 1976.
