The driver of a stolen Porsche shot to death by NYPD cops in Brooklyn Tuesday as he sped toward them at a Belt Parkway road block was on federal probation for being part of an interstate ring of car thieves, police said.
The now-deceased driver, Jumaane Wright, 28, and nine other suspects were charged last November in an East Coast auto theft conspiracy ring. The thieves, mostly from Pennsylvania and Maryland, plus one from New Jersey, used electronic key programmers, along with planted cell phones as GPS trackers, to steal high-end muscle cars from dealerships.
“According to the indictment, the vehicles were shown off in person at the meetups and on social media and driven in a reckless and dangerous manner, such as spinning and ‘burning out’ the vehicles,” the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania said in a press release at the time.
Wright and several other suspects were due back in court on July 7 for the start of jury selection, according to a Pennsylvania U.S. attorney spokesperson.
Wright’s pending criminal case, though, apparently did not keep him from continuing his schemes.
On Tuesday night, when officers with the NYPD’s Community Response Team spotted “a suspicious Porsche with suspicious plates” on the eastbound Belt Parkway near the Bay Eighth St. Exit in Bath Beach, they checked the plates, revealing the car had been stolen, NYPD Chief of Department John Chell said after the incident. It was later determined the car had been stolen in Pennsylvania.
When officers attempted to pull the car over, Wright, who was accompanied by a passenger, exited the parkway at a high rate of speed, then got back on again and sped off, Chell said.
At this point, cops did not pursue the car, but radioed ahead to adjoining police precincts that the stolen vehicle was heading in their direction.
About 10 miles later at the Rockaway Parkway Exit in Canarsie, Wright, still speeding, veered onto the service road and headed “in [the] direction of several officers who [had] set up a roadblock to stop this vehicle,” the chief continued.
The suspect got too close to one officer, “nearly striking him,” Chell said, at which point the officer fired a single shot, killing Wright.
The car continued on to a further exit on Pennsylvania Ave., where it struck an NYPD vehicle, Chell said.
The passenger was arrested and officers “performed lifesaving measures on the driver,” Chell said. Wright was rushed to Brookdale Hospital but could not be saved. The chief said the entire incident was captured on police body-worn cameras.
He added that Wright was “on federal probation for…interstate transfer of stolen vehicles out of Pennsylvania.”
Wright’s family declined to speak to reporters following the incident.
“Right now, we are not making any comments,” a stepsister of his said.
Charges against the passenger, who is from Philadelphia, are pending.
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