NEW YORK (AP) — A long-retired New York City Police detective was arrested Wednesday in the road rage-induced killing of a motorist on the George Washington Bridge, police said.
Victor Romero, 62, was charged with the murder of Coran Irvine, 46, who was found shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday, injured and unconscious in the driver’s seat of a vehicle on the upper level side of the New Jersey-bound bridge.
Irvine, of Valley Cottage, New York, was pronounced dead at a hospital. The late evening shooting disrupted traffic for hours on the busy stretch of the Hudson River that connects Manhattan and Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Romero, of Haverstraw, New York, retired from the New York Police Department in 2001 after serving injured in hand and chest in off-duty shooting with men who attempted to rob his family’s laundromat in Brooklyn in June 2000. Using his service weapon, Romero shot one of the men in the stomach, arm and leg, and another man in the legs, according to the media of the time.
A phone number listed for Romero in public records rang unanswered. Information about an attorney who could comment on his behalf was not immediately available. Romero, a Brooklyn drug detective, had worked for the New York Police Department for six years when the laundromat shooting occurred, according to a New York Post article at the time.
Irvine worked for Con Edison, the utility said in a statement, calling the shooting a “senseless act of violence.”
“Our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends, colleagues and all who knew and loved him,” the company said.
The bridge’s closed lanes reopened about five hours after the shooting, with the span’s operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jerseysaid.
Opened to traffic in 1931, the iconic double-decker bridge carries about 100 million vehicles each year, according to the Port Authority, which considers it the busiest in the world. The bridge and its entrances are full of cameras.
Its entrances can be difficult to navigate, as drivers often navigate crowded lanes, causing heavy traffic even under normal circumstances.
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