Retired NYPD Detective Faces Manslaughter Charge in George Washington Bridge Shooting

Updated 20:05 UTC, Oct 22

Victor Romero, the retired NYPD detective accused of killing a driver on the George Washington Bridge, was arraigned on Thursday in Manhattan Criminal Court on a manslaughter charge and ordered held on $1 million bail. Police had arrested him on a murder charge on Wednesday. The Manhattan district attorney's office declined to comment on why the court charge is manslaughter rather than murder, the New York Post reported.

Prosecutors said Romero tailgated Koran Irvine closely and at times aggressively after a near collision on an entrance ramp, then pulled alongside and fired once. The shot entered the back passenger window and struck Irvine in the right shoulder, Assistant District Attorney Matt Sears said at the hearing. Romero left the scene, did not call 911 and did not turn himself in, Sears said. Sources told the Post that Romero later tried to surrender at the wrong stationhouse before his arrest. Detectives recovered a revolver registered to Romero and are testing it, and they found two more handguns at his home, NBC New York reported.

Romero did not enter a plea, and the district attorney's office will present the case to a grand jury next week, FOX 5 New York reported. His lawyer, Alan Abramson, asked for lower bail and called Romero a hero police officer. About a dozen of Irvine's relatives attended the hearing. His aunt Gale Ford asked why the charge was not murder. His sister Zeira Irvine said Romero fled the scene and left her brother to die.

Updated 22:35 UTC

A retired New York City police detective has been arrested and charged with murder in the shooting that killed a driver on the George Washington Bridge on Tuesday evening, police said on Wednesday.

The Associated Press reported that Victor Romero, 62, of Haverstraw, New York, was arrested on Wednesday in the death of Koran Irvine, 46, of Valley Cottage, New York. Romero retired from the New York Police Department in 2001. NBC New York and the New York Post reported that he was charged with murder and was awaiting arraignment on Wednesday night. No information was available on a lawyer who could speak for him.

Irvine was found wounded and unconscious in the driver seat of his vehicle on the New Jersey bound upper level just after 7 p.m. on Tuesday, the AP reported. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. Investigators believe the shooting followed a road rage encounter on the bridge. Law enforcement sources told NBC New York that a single shot was fired through a window of Irvine's car, striking him in the shoulder and exiting his neck.

Irvine worked for Con Edison and was off duty at the time, the company said. Con Edison called the shooting a "senseless act of violence" and sent condolences to his family, friends and colleagues. The New York Post reported that Irvine was a father of two.

Romero surrendered to police less than a day after the shooting, law enforcement sources told the Post. NBC New York reported that his car is in NYPD custody and that his house in Haverstraw is off limits while police seek a search warrant.

The shooting closed the westbound upper level near the end of the evening rush. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the closed lanes reopened about five hours after the shooting.

Earlier reporting

The driver found shot on the George Washington Bridge on Tuesday night has died. NBC New York reported that the man was found with a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at Englewood Hospital, citing police sources. The New York Post also reported that the driver was pronounced dead at the hospital and that the suspect had fled and remained at large late on Tuesday, with investigators reviewing security camera footage.

Port Authority police responded around 7:05 p.m. to a single vehicle crash on the westbound upper level and found the driver with an apparent gunshot wound to the head, a Port Authority spokesperson told NorthJersey.com. No one else was injured, the spokesperson said. Police have not shared a description of the suspected shooter, NBC New York reported. The bridge account on X posted at 10:45 p.m. that the upper level to New Jersey had all lanes closed due to police activity.

A man was shot on the George Washington Bridge on Tuesday evening, and police closed the westbound lanes on the upper level of the crossing between New York City and New Jersey.

FOX 5 New York reported that police confirmed the shooting. The New York City Police Department received a 911 call about the incident at 7:18 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 20, the station said. The man was shot on the westbound side of the upper level.

NorthJersey.com reported that all New Jersey bound lanes on the upper level were closed just before 7 p.m., citing the New Jersey Department of Transportation traffic service, 511NJ. The bridge account on X posted that the closure was due to police activity.

Taken to a New Jersey hospital

Eyewitness News in New York City, citing sources, reported that the man was taken to Englewood Hospital in New Jersey, NorthJersey.com said. Englewood is a short drive from the New Jersey end of the bridge in Fort Lee.

Reports on Tuesday night gave no name for the man. FOX 5 New York said the identity of the man who was shot and the identity of whoever shot him were both unknown, and the condition of the man was also unknown. No report on Tuesday night described an arrest, a suspect description or a motive, and police had not said what led to the gunfire on the bridge.

A main crossing shut in the evening

The George Washington Bridge crosses the Hudson River between Fort Lee, New Jersey, and the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. It carries Interstate 95, U.S. Routes 1 and 9, and U.S. Route 46 on the New Jersey side. The bridge has 14 lanes in all, eight on the upper level and six on the lower level, and it is one of the main road links between northern New Jersey and New York City.

Westbound traffic on the bridge is traffic heading toward New Jersey. Closing every westbound lane on the upper level in the evening shut one of the two decks for drivers leaving New York, on a crossing that handles heavy traffic through the day and into the night. The reports on Tuesday night did not give a time for the lanes to reopen, and they did not say how long the closure would last.

What is still unknown

Almost every basic fact about the shooting itself was still open late on Tuesday. Police had not said where on the upper level the man was shot, whether he was in a vehicle or on foot, whether anyone else was with him, or whether the shooter stayed on the bridge or left the area.

They also had not said how serious his injuries are. A man taken to a hospital after a shooting on a bridge deck, with no condition released hours later, leaves commuters and families with the same short set of facts that police gave reporters on Tuesday night: one man shot, one deck partly closed, and an investigation under way on the crossing itself.

The Orbit Post will update this article in place if police release the man's condition, name a suspect, or confirm when the westbound upper level has fully reopened.