A wrong-way driver first struck an off-duty NYPD officer before fatally plowing into groom-to-be Kirk Walker in a fiery wreck, law enforcement sources said. The transit cop called 911 after the early Saturday hit-and-run in Lower Manhattan and chased after the driver’s pickup truck along the West Side Highway until he lost sight of it, sources said.
State Attorney General Letitia James’ office is looking into the off-duty cop’s actions to see if they led to the horrific, head-on wreck moments afterward in which the truck smashed into a Dodge Challenger, killing Walker, 38, and his cousin Rob McLaurin, 40, who were celebrating Walker’s bachelor party, police and officials said.
The pickup truck’s driver ran off after the crash and remained on the loose Thursday. His passenger, a 22-year-old man, was taken into custody about 30 feet from the wreck, police said. The tragic wreck came one day before Walker, a father of three, was set to tie the knot in a huge ceremony in New Jersey. “I’m supposed to be in my wedding dress right now — not in mourning,” his shattered fiancée Shauntea Weaver, 40, told The Post Sunday. Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday that he’d put up $1,000 of his own money to help catch the fugitive wrong-way driver. The runaway motorist’s hit-and-run with the off-duty transit cop unfolded along Canal Street, sources said. The cop followed the truck, not at high rate of speed, as the wayward vehicle drove the wrong way up the West Side Highway, according to sources. His tailing of the truck will be subject to a “preliminary assessment” by James’ office, which has jurisdiction whenever there’s a question whether any cop caused a death. The assessment will only lead to an open investigation if officials find reason to believe the cop was involved in the fatal crash. The head-on crash took place about 2:20 a.m. on the northbound Henry Hudson near West 154th Street, police said.
source: nypost.com
