’94 friendly-fire vic has coronary after Fla. bike crash
Ex-city Transit Police Officer Desmond Robinson, a Black undercover cop shot five times by an off-duty white officer during a chaotic 1994 Manhattan subway station chase, died in Florida last week after crashing his motorcycle. He was 56.
The headline-making friendly-fire shooting inside the stop at Lexington Ave. and E. 53rd St. forced the seriously injured Robinson into retirement, while Officer Peter Del-Debbio was convicted of second-degree assault two years later.
Some members of a Black police organization suggested the cop opened fire more quickly than usual because of Robinson’s race. Robinson, who suffered nerve damage to his leg and back in the shooting, received a $3 million settlement from the city after taking four of the bullets in his back.
“It’s a tragic loss,” Del-Debbio told the Daily News Sunday after learning of Robinson’s death. The two men had not been in touch in the years since the incident.
“In my mind we’re both still fellow officers,” Del-Debbio said. “So for him and his family’s sake, I’m so sorry that happened.”
Del-Debbio lost his job but avoided a jail term after Robinson appeared at the sentencing to issue a call for leniency.
“I know, from my own experience, that the loss of being able to serve the people of New York City as an active member of the NYPD is a harsh punishment in itself,” Robinson said at the June 1996 hearing. “The imposition of jail time would serve no purpose. I respectfully urge the court to be merciful and lenient.”
According to an obituary published by the Retired Transit Police Officer’s Association, Desmond died Thursday when he suffered a heart attack after crashing his motorcycle early that morning in Palm Coast, where he had been living.
He was airlifted conscious and alert to
Halifax Health Medical Center of Daytona Beach, complaining of chest pains. He had a heart attack at the hospital and was resuscitated five times before lifesaving measures failed.
“Thank you God for memories they are Golden. They are so precious. Damn Skipper I’m truly going to miss you being here In the flesh, however I know your spirit is going to be here watching over us all,” Robinson’s sister, Kelli Robinson-Ryner, said in a tribute she posted on Facebook Thursday. Robinson was in plainclothes, running along the platform with his gun out and pursuing two armed teenagers, when one of the pair dropped a shotgun that went off with a loud boom.
The white officer was off-duty and heading back to his Queens home when he heard the blast and sprung into action, mistaking Robinson for a suspect and opening fire. Robinson later testified that he never saw the other cop until Del-Debbio opened fire.
Del-Debbio said he squeezed the trigger because he feared getting shot first.
Though race was never raised as an issue at trial, jurors said afterward Robinson would have been less likely to draw fire from the cop if he was white.
“I’ve just chalked it up as a tragedy,” Del-Debbio said of the shooting Sunday. “I’m sorry his life was altered, I’m sorry my life was altered.”