Chaos erupted in a Brooklyn courtroom Tuesday when the younger brother of an NYPD officer killed in a fiery motorcycle crash lunged at a relative of the truck driver charged with fleeing the deadly wreck, law enforcement sources said.
The melee broke out at the Brooklyn Supreme Court arraignment of Carlos Almanzar Toribio, who’s charged with leaving the scene of the crash on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that killed off-duty cop Jay Pena, 30, on Aug. 27.
Kerry Burke / New York Daily News
Suspect Carlos Almanzar Toribio, 30, is arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Thursday in the hit-and-run death of off duty NYPD officer Jay Pena. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
Pena’s brother lunged at one of Almanzar Toribio’s relatives in the audience at the end of the proceeding, sources said, and in the ensuing mayhem, an on-duty NYPD lieutenant suffered a mild head injury.
Medics took away that officer, who was bleeding from the back of his head. The suspect’s relative could also be seen complaining of head pain before medics took him away, as well.
Pena’s brother, Jason, 18, was charged with disorderly conduct and given a summons to appear in court, court officials confirmed Tuesday.
Almanzar Toribio’s lawyer, Steven Brill, said the arraignment itself went off without any surprises: His client pleaded not guilty, bail was continued, and the case was adjourned.
“So it was a surprise and somewhat unfortunate, because this was an accident,” Brill said of the deadly incident. “My client’s not being charged with the death of this off-duty police officer. As tragic as this is, I would hope that the deceased’s family understands that, and perhaps looks at some of the video to get a real sense of how this accident transpired.”
Almanzar Toribio’s four-month-old child and the baby’s mother were present in court, Brill said. “I know that one or more of the family members kind of reached or jumped over her, pushed her out of the way…,” he said. “So it was very confusing.”
The morning of the crash, Almanzar Toribio, 30, was driving a 2020 Freightliner box truck in the direction of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge when he collided with Pena’s Yamaha motorcycle, cops said.
Pena, a four-year veteran of the force assigned to the 84th Precinct in downtown Brooklyn, was thrown from his motorcycle, which kept on going down the highway, slamming into a wall and exploding into flames, video posted on social media shows.
Prosecutors have said video shows Pena’s body rolling out from under the truck after impact, and eyewitnesses saw Almanzar Toribio observe the officer’s body on the ground and dislodge the motorcycle from under his truck.
“This individual had the opportunity to do the right thing and try to help our injured brother,” Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association, said Tuesday. “Instead, he left him to die on the side of the road, fled the scene and tried to cover his tracks. He needs to be held accountable for those choices and the pain he has caused.”
In a lengthy statement to police after the crash, Almanzar Toribio admitted to detaching the motorcycle, but contended that he thought the victim struck another truck carrying wooden planks that had overtaken him on the highway.
“I said, ‘Oh, he left,’” Almanzar Toribio said, apparently referring to this second truck driver. “So I took out the thing, and I said, ‘Well, if he left then I’m going to leave, too…. Since I didn’t have anything to do with the accident, I left. I took out the motorcycle and left, because it was burning. If I left it there, (the) truck would have been burned, too.”
Almanzar Toribio remains held on $150,000 cash bail or $300,000 bond.
