‘DWI killer’ cop booted
NYPD retracing booze-fueled night
The NYPD has fired the rookie cop charged with killing an MIT student while driving drunk, as investigators try to reconstruct the boozy night the officer spent with two colleagues leading up to the tragedy, sources said on Wednesday.
The fellow cops who were partying with Nicholas Batka before he allegedly drove his SUV onto a Brooklyn sidewalk Saturday are also under investigation to find out if they were “driving after ingesting significant amounts of alcohol,” Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said.
“As a police officer, you have an obligation, even off-duty, to be mindful of the laws that you’re supposed to be enforcing,” Bratton said.
The New York State Liquor Authority announced Wednesday that it has opened a joint probe into the crash with the NYPD.
A source said Batka’s final drinking spot was The Whiskey Brooklyn in Williamsburg, where the incident occurred before he went on-duty.
He and Officers Jeremy Rodriguez and Emmanuel Collado, who have been stripped of their guns and badges, worked together in the NYPD’s Transit Division.
Investigators have visited several bars to trace the cops’ movements.
The NYPD already has evidence they were tossing back drinks in Manhattan, and may have crossed the Williamsburg Bridge more than once during their pub crawl.
Bratton said the division would be scrutinized, adding that NYPD Chief of Department James O’Neill would issue a reminder that all supervisors “ensure that officers going on duty are, in fact, in condition to go on duty.”
Batka, 28, is charged with man- slaughter, DWI in the death of Andrew Esquivel, 21. Three of Esquivel’s pals were struck and seriously injured.
Bratton said he signed Batka’s walking papers Tuesday, “taking advantage of his probationary status to fire him forthwith rather than having to go through an administrative trial.”