GWB shooting case goes to court: Why we haven't seen suspect's face

A shooting, a deadly shooting that happened at the George Washington Bridge Tuesday evening. And go right now to our Linda Schmidt to get an update on where this case stands and what's happening. Linda, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, absolutely there, Lisa. Well, today the retired NYPD narcotics detective who is charged in this case, Victor Romero, he was in criminal court here in Lower Manhattan today. It was an arraignment. What an arraignment means is that he appeared before a judge. Usually they enter a plea. That did not happen in this case, Lisa. That's because the DA's office, the Manhattan DA's office, says that it is going to be presenting this case to a grand jury on October 26th, which is next Monday. Now, if that grand jury decides to indict Victor Romero, he will appear in court then after that, and he will enter a plea in this case. But Lisa, as you were just saying, this happened about Tuesday night, and this is one of those stories that just shocks whoever hears what happened here. It's taken so many bizarre twists, and people, it's really hard to process the information that's coming in on this story. But the victim is 47-year-old Corran Irvine. He is a longtime employee with Con Ed. He was in his personal vehicle, and he was on his way home on Tuesday night, and he was entering the GW Bridge on his way home to Jersey, and then going over the bridge to go to Rockland County. And then at the very same time, Victor Romero, who is the retired NYPD detective, he was also on his way home to Rockland County. Prosecutors say that surveillance camera footage from the GW Bridge shows the two of them almost colliding. And then after that, today the prosecution saying that Mr. Romero then, and I'm going to use, I'm going to quote here the prosecution, then tailgated the car of Mr. Irvine aggressively, quote, aggressively at times, and then pulled to the right. So the two cars are going across the GW Bridge. They're entering the GW Bridge. They're both driving. He pulls over to the right, according to the prosecution. They say they had this on surveillance video. Pulls out his gun, fires into Mr. Irvine's car, and then that bullet hits him in the back of his shoulder and his neck, killing him. This is why they are both, this is while they are both driving across the bridge. And then the prosecution is saying the surveillance video then shows the retired detective then speeding ahead, continuing his way across the GW Bridge and going home. Now, today, the family met with the DA's office before this court appearance, and they had asked the DA to remand him without bail. They wanted him held without bail. The prosecution, though, the DA's office, said that it was sticking with asking for $1 million bail, which the judge granted. So the retired detective is still in custody at this point. He has to make $1 million cash bail in order to get out. But, Lisa, there are a lot of questions here about this case, and the family is outraged. Not only are they heartbroken, they are outraged by this because Mr. Irvine is described as a family man, hard worker, had worked overtime on that day, was on his way home from work. He's got an 11-year-old son, a 14-year-old daughter, and now they are without a father over what police and the prosecution says is a road rage incident. And Lisa, as you know, as a retired cop, that you are allowed to keep your guns, your service revolver. And so he had one of those guns on him. I just want to say here, they found, originally, Lisa, they said that he was arrested at his home in Haverstraw in Rockland County. That's where the retired cop lives. He was not arrested there, though. Today in court, the prosecution is saying that they located him at his place of work in Manhattan the next day. And he is the director of security for a luxury limo company. That's what he's been doing for many years now. When they arrested him, he had his revolver on him, which is legal and registered. And they also found two legally registered guns, handguns, at his home in Rockland County. but excuse me just a moment there Lise the family in addition to wanting him uh remanded without bail they're saying one of the main reasons that he should have been held without bail is because he fled the scene of a crime exactly that he shot him allegedly and then never called 9-1-1 didn't stop to see if there was anything he could do to help the victim and continued on his way, and he fled the scene. So if somebody else other than a retired cop, now again, this is according to the victim's family and their attorneys, if it would be anybody else other than a retired police officer, they would be treated differently. There's no way that they would be released on bail. That's what they are maintaining. So they are very upset about this, Lisa. So I want to go ahead and play the sound here. Don't play the sound yet from the attorney. I'm going to get to that in just a moment. Let's play the sound first with the victim's sister, who was visibly upset and said when she was in court today, she was shaking looking at the man who is now accused of killing her brother. Let's take a listen to that. Okay. This is horrible. I don't know what else to say. We're all in shock. The family is a beautiful family. His kids are wonderful. His kids and my kids are friends. this is a shock it's a tragedy he was not a violent person he was a happy person full of life he lived every day full of life this is just surreal just to have him and how are you related my husband is his best friend he was the best man at our wedding i've known him for 17 years my husband I've reached out to his wife. It's been obviously hard to get in communication. We're just there to support. Obviously, there's no words. Lisa, I'm hoping, because I can't hear that well out here, that at least one of those sound bites was with the victim's sister. The other one is with the wife of the best man when he got married. So that's who you were hearing from there. And I hope we have the sister as well. She's very tall. She had on big sunglasses, very visibly upset, and she was crying during a lot of her statement before the media at this press conference. But, Lisa, the other thing, too, that they raised here. Yeah, go ahead. I wanted to ask you, for people that haven't been following this as much this week, it's like this idea that somebody could be killed in a road rage incident and these kind of circumstances in such a busy place, anyone who's ever been over that George Washington Bridge, especially leaving from Manhattan, going into Jersey, it's always chaotic. There's multiple merges all at the same time. There's people that want to go to the other side. It's really unthinkable. It really is. And the thing of it is, somebody pulls out a weapon and fires, even if they just fire that one shot. Lisa, as you know, that could go through somebody's windshield, hit a person. It could travel through that person's body, out another windshield and hit another car. I mean, somebody else could have been hit by this bullet. Somebody else could have been killed. So that was another point that they were bringing up in court today. And Lisa, I want to go back to something that happened back in 2000 because Victor Romero, again, the retired narcotics cop, he was a narcotics police officer back in 2000. And we have this video. His family owned a laundromat in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. And there were two suspects who were apparently trying to rob the place. Well, the detective was off duty at the time. He had his gun with him, his service revolver with him. And there were gunshots. There was a gunfight going on between him and the two suspects. Both of the suspects were hit, as well as the detective. Well, Fox 5 covered the story at that time. That's why we have video, and you can see it's old video from 2000 again. And you can see it's the crime scene of this laundromat. But there's no video of the police officer at that time. Well, after that incident happened, Lisa, he was portrayed as a hero cop coming to the rescue of his family. Thank goodness he was there. Thank goodness he had a gun on him and that he was able to prevent them from robbing him. But what we did not know, and this is what the family's attorneys brought up today, and you were about to hear from them, is that shortly after that encounter, someone filed a complaint against the narcotics cop with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the CCRB, for firing his weapon related to that incident. And the CCRB apparently was investigating that. And he then suddenly, within 18 months, according to the attorneys here for the family, he suddenly retires from the NYPD. Oh. And he had not been on the job for a long time. And then... Suddenly retires. Right. Well, you know, Lisa, once you retire, any investigation by the CCRB, it's over, it's done, it's finished. So they're bringing that up and they're saying, look, this is another reason why when police officers are involved in any type of altercation or any type of complaint with the CCRB, whether or not you retire, that investigation should be allowed to move forward. And we've got sound on that. Do you guys have the sound? Let's check with him. We do have it, Linda. We do. But an investigation is taking place, and clearly there are failures here. And, in fact, this individual maintained a firearm license, that he was able to use this in his employment subsequent to leaving or being forced out of the NYPD. And these are the things that we will be looking at and discussing with the family. Okay, so there you go, Lisa. That's another part of this case. No, definitely another part. I mean, so many layers to this, and we really appreciate you taking us through every single one. Let me ask you one question, though, too. With a hit-and-run accident, in this case a shoot-and-run, a drive-by shooting and on-the-run type of situation, there's no way for them to test whether he had alcohol in his bloodstream at that time or whether he may have been drinking or doing drugs or anything like that, right? Correct. That's absolutely right. And the other thing, too, Lisa, that the family is claiming is that they feel that this retired cop is getting preferential treatment because, as both you and I know, any reporter here in New York City knows, if a situation like this would have happened with just a regular person, we would have had a picture of the suspect or some type of video of them being walked out of the precinct, being taken to Central Booking. The family is raising that and saying, where's the picture? Where's the video? Where's all of this social media? There's not a picture of the retired cop anywhere. And if it would have been, you know, just an average Joe, you know, within a few hours, we would have had a picture. We would have had the video of him being walked out of the precinct. More than likely, we would have had something. And so they are also alleging that this is preferential treatment because Victor Romero is a retired police officer. He's 62 years old, by the way. The victim was 47. Oh, it's just terrible. Linda, thank you so much for that report. We appreciate it. I know you've been following this since it happened. And thank you so much for that report, filling us in, letting us know how everything is unfolding and all these complex issues attached to this particular case.