SOMERS \u2013 An off-duty New York City Police detective from Patterson is himself in trouble with the law for allegedly pointing a loaded gun at three teenagers during a road rage incident in Somers.<\/p>\n
Westchester County District Attorney Susan Cacace identified the suspect Tuesday as 36-year-old John O\u2019Connell, who joined the NYPD in 2013 and was promoted to warrant squad detective in 2021.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connell has been charged with menacing, endangering the welfare of a child, and criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the incident that reportedly occurred on Route 6 near the county line when three 16-year-olds from Westchester and Putnam were driving east on Route 6 when they stopped suddenly because of changing traffic patterns.<\/p>\n
The D.A.\u2019s office said O\u2019Connell, who was driving behind them, was forced to brake suddenly before pulling up alongside the teens and yelling, \u201cI have a gun\u201d while pointing a loaded Glock 19 pistol at the driver.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prosecutors further alleged that O\u2019Connell drove aggressively toward the teenagers who managed to escape and call police.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connell was arraigned in Somers Town Court where he pleaded not guilty and was released on his own recognizance pending future court action.<\/p>\n
Cacace called it \u201cunacceptable for anyone to turn a traffic grievance into a lethal threat. The teenage victims in this case demonstrated a laudable measure of composure in navigating a dangerous situation to safety, and I commend them for their courage.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connell has been temporarily suspended from the NYPD due to the allegations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOMERS \u2013 An off-duty New York City Police detective from Patterson is himself in trouble with the law…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":196717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,109341,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5257,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-196716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-john-oconnell","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-nypd","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115140176610090514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}