Retired NYPD detective's charge downgraded to manslaughter after GWB shooting

But we begin tonight with the utter agony on display outside criminal court after the family, the GWB shooting victim, watched a suspect get handed a $1 million bail order. Good evening, I'm Natasha Verma. Fox Five's Linda Schmidt is in Lower Manhattan with what the family is saying tonight. Linda. Yeah, first of all, Natasha, I want to say this. The retired NYPD detective is Victor Romero. When the NYPD arrested him yesterday, he was charged with murder. But then the Manhattan District Attorney's Office downgraded that charge to first-degree manslaughter a one million dollar bail was set today and in court prosecutors say that he had aggressively tailgated the victim before shooting him go ahead take a look at this video because this was earlier today family and friends of the victim 47 year old Coran Irvine a Con Edison employee walked into the courtroom today to see for the very first time the man accused of killing him. Irvine was a married father of two. He had an 11-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter. He lived in Rockland County. The DA's office says that he was on his way home from work at about 7.15 on Tuesday night when he and Romero nearly collided on the George Washington Bridge. Prosecutors say surveillance video from the bridge shows Romero then speeding up, tailgating Irvine, at times aggressively, before pulling next to him while they were both still driving and firing a shot into his car, killing Irvine. They say Romero then continued driving home and did not call 911. Now, Romero retired from the NYPD back in 2001. He currently works as the director of security for a luxury limo service, and he was driving a company vehicle that night, a black Range Rover. Retired police officer intentionally fired a bullet and killed him. And instead of it being murder, it's called manslaughter. My brother is a hero. He's my hero. And I talk to him every single day on that commute that he does to go home. Recklessness and ego of the road rager to take my brother's life. And the video you are looking at right now is video from back in 2000 when Victor Romero was involved in a shootout with two suspects trying to rob his family's laundromat business in Brooklyn. He was off duty at the time. They were shot and so was he. Now, at that time, he was called a hero police officer. But today, Irvine's lawyers say a complaint was filed against Romero with the Civilian Complaint Review Board for that shooting. And while the CCRB was investigating, he retired, which ended that investigation. Retired officers are allowed to carry legally registered guns. The fact that he was allowed to keep his service weapon while leaving a job under investigation and then using that service weapon to kill an innocent father, an innocent husband, right? Those things raise deeper and broader questions for us. And responding to that, a law enforcement source is telling me that Romero retired because of the injury to his hand. But it was before he retired, before the CCRB could complete its investigation.