COP-SHOOT SUIT
Officer fired nine times, says susp displayed pistol
An upstate police officer blasted a Michigan man in his car nine times in a bizarre encounter captured on body-cam video.
The shooting of Colin Yurick on the side of Route 17 at 10 p.m. on May 13, 2020, is the subject of a lawsuit filed Monday in Broome County Supreme Court. Cops say Yurick brandished an air pistol, sparking the shooting. Yurick denies he ever pulled the air gun.
Body-worn camera from Town of Vestal Police Officer Jared Fiacco captures a minute-long conversation with Yurick. Suddenly, Fiacco unloads his clip of nine bullets into Yurick’s car, according to the lawsuit.
“It was unprovoked and police allowed him to languish with near fatal wounds for approximately three hours before bringing him to the hospital for treatment,” said attorney Caitlin Robin.
The interaction starts innocently enough. Yurick, 30, asks Fiacco for a lighter. Then the conversation gets weird.
Yurick, responding to Fiacco’s questions, says he’s coming from Michigan — and returning to Michigan.
“Coming from Michigan and going back to Michigan? No place in between?” Fiacco asked.
“This car, I guess,” Yurick replied.
“So you left Michigan, went nowhere to New York and then headed back to Michigan?” Fiacco said.
“I didn’t go to New York,” Yurick said.
“You’re in New York. You are in New York. Where do you think you are?” Fiacco asks.
Then, after an eight second pause, Fiacco unloads a barrage of bullets at the car, two of which hit Yurick, according to the suit.
“Shots fired! Shots fired!” Fiacco screams as he backs toward his car.
Fiacco claimed that Yurick “displayed a gun” and “barricaded himself in the vehicle” for the next few hours, according to a police report obtained by The News. The body cam video does not show whether Yurick brandished a weapon.
Yurick had allegedly fired a pellet gun at four people in Pennsylvania earlier in the day.
But his attorneys deny Fiacco’s version of events.
“He [Fiacco] falsely told the
DA’s Office that he shot Mr. Yurick because he [Yurick] pointed a black handgun at him,” Robin wrote in the lawsuit.
Yurick pleaded not guilty to menacing a police officer and criminal possession of a weapon. The charges are still pending. He was hospitalized for six weeks after the shooting, according to the lawsuit.
Cops found a black air pistol next to the driver’s side door, the police report shows.
The Vestal Police Department declined to comment, pending resolution of the criminal case against Yurick. The town is roughly four hours from the city, outside of Binghamton.
Fiacco was previously sued for a similar 2011 incident in which he opened fire on another man.
In that case, Fiacco and his partner allegedly shot into the car of a man named Wayne Isaacs, while responding to a robbery. Isaacs claimed he was shot five times despite having no weapons in his car.
A civil jury ultimately found the officers not liable for the shooting.