The New York Daily News by WIL CRUZ, KERRY BURKE AND BILL HUTCHINSON - June 3, 2010
Cop driving car that killed him, 2nd police officer was double the legal limit for alcohol: commish Officer Hoyoung Kim is drunk when he crashes his car in the Bronx last month, killing himself and an NYPD buddy and injuring four women they met at a party.
Cop driving car that killed him, 2nd police officer was double the legal limit for alcohol: commish Officer Hoyoung Kim is drunk when he crashes his car in the Bronx last month, killing himself and an NYPD buddy and injuring four women they met at a party.
An off-duty cop was drunk when he crashed his car in the Bronx last month, killing himself and an NYPD buddy and injuring four women they met at a party, police said yesterday. Officer Hoyoung Kim had a blood-alcohol level of 0.16, twice the state's 0.08 legal limit, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters. Kim's colleague at the 32nd Precinct in Harlem, Officer Edwin Paulino, a passenger in the doomed car, was also sloshed with a blood-alcohol level of 0.21, a police source said. Asked if he was stunned by the toxicology reports, Kelly said, "I have no comment." The mother of two sisters critically hurt in the May 16 crash on the Bronx River Parkway lashed out at the deceased cops for taking her daughters on the deadly ride. "I don't understand why the police officer would drive a car knowing he had been drinking," Sabina Ramirez, 47, of the Bronx, said at Jacobi Medical Center, where her daughters, Jazmin, 23, and Iris, 27, remain in critical condition. "I don't know if one of my daughters will ever walk again," said Ramirez, referring to Iris, who suffered a broken pelvis, two fractured legs and a spinal cord injury. Crash victims Shirley Torres, 26, and Melina Ramirez, 27, no relation to the sisters, also remain hospitalized at Jacobi Medical Center. The women, according to their lawyer, accepted a ride home from Kim, 32, after he assured them he was fit to drive, and he and Paulino boasted, "Don't worry, we're cops." Lawyer Ken Litman conceded the women knew the officers had been drinking at the raucous surprise birthday party for a fellow cop in Pelham Bay, but said they wouldn't have gotten into the car if they knew the driver was so intoxicated. The women climbed into the backseat of Kim's 2009 Nissan Altima and Paulino, 25, got in the front passenger seat when they left the party just after 6 a.m. In the days following the accident, colleagues of the officers and even a sergeant at the 32nd Precinct insisted Kim would never drive drunk. Kim's twin brother, Juyoung Kim, appeared solemn when asked about the latest twist in the tragedy. "I do feel bad for the families," he said. "I can't imagine what they're going through, but we're also grieving." With Tanyanika Samuels and Robert Sgobbo kburke@nydailynews.com
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