Anastasios Tsakos
A woman in Queens, New York is charged on Tuesday with fatally hitting a New York Police Department officer who was diverting traffic on the Long Island Expressway. There’s no dispute she killed him. While being escorted in handcuffs, defendant Jessica Beauvais, 32, apologized for causing the death of Anastasios Tsakos, 43.
“I’m sorry,” she told reporters. “I’m sorry that I hit him and that he’s dead.”
In a press conference on Tuesday, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said Tsakos, a 14-year veteran of the force, responded to the scene of a fatal, single car crash that took the life of a passenger earlier. As part of work, he was diverting traffic off the highway. At about 1 a.m., Beauvais, a Hempstead resident who was driving a 2013 Volkswagen, swerved to avoid vehicles, and struck the victim head-on next to his marked police car, Shea said. The commissioner described her vehicle as sustaining damage to the front, as well as a “completely shattered” windshield.
The defendant, who faces charges including vehicular manslaughter, was intoxicated and had a suspended license, Shea said.
Tsakos’ colleagues on the NYPD mourned him on Tuesday. He was a father of a 6-year-old girl, and a 3-year-old son, said NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“The pain she’s going through, there are no words for,” Shea said of the officer’s widow.
He said that those who worked with Tsakos described him as “the best of the best.”
[Image on right via NYPD Bees / @NYPDBees]