An off-duty New York Police Department sergeant who was driving the wrong way down the Taconic State Parkway on Thursday night killed a 61-year-old man when her car slammed head-on into his vehicle, the state police said.
Tiffany Howell, 47, was driving a 2021 Infiniti south in the northbound lane in Mount Pleasant when she crashed into a 2024 Toyota RAV4 driven by Manuel Boitel, a doorman who worked in Manhattan and lived in Peekskill, N.Y., according to the state police and his family.
Mr. Boitel was taken to Westchester Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Sergeant Howell, who lives in Warwick, N.Y., was taken to the same hospital but did not appear to have life-threatening injuries, the state police said.
She has not been charged, but the state police said they were investigating the circumstances around the crash and asked that any witnesses call with tips. The state police said they had informed the state attorney general’s office about the crash. Under state law, the office of special investigation under the state attorney general’s office must investigate any instance in which an officer has caused the death of someone “or in which there is a question whether an officer has caused a death.”
The state attorney general’s office said it had opened a “preliminary assessment” of the crash.
Sergeant Howell has been placed on desk duty and was stripped of her gun, according to the New York Police Department. She joined the department in 2008 and was assigned to a unit that developed strategies for addressing juvenile crime.
The crash happened at 11:39 p.m. Thursday, the same night Sergeant Howell had been scheduled to host a party for the Holy Name Society, a police fraternal organization. Sergeant Howell is listed as a treasurer of the group, which was founded in 1914 and promotes itself as the “largest and oldest religious fraternal organization in the N.Y.P.D.”
Sergeant Howell did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Her name was listed among a group of officers hosting the party Holy Smoke, which was to be held at Mom’s Cigar Warehouse, a tobacconist and lounge in Scarsdale, N.Y. The party, for which tickets were sold for $150, promised an open bar, “premium cigars,” music and a buffet-style dinner.
A person who answered the phone at the lounge said there had been a party Thursday night but did not know if it had involved police officers. The person declined to provide more information but said he would give a reporter’s name and phone number to his boss.
It was not immediately known on Friday whether Sergeant Howell attended the party.
Mr. Boitel’s son, Marvin Boitel, 36, said his father had been heading home from work in Manhattan, where he had been a doorman for 30 years. He had finished an eight-hour shift that ended at 11 p.m., Marvin Boitel said.
“He was a caring, loving father who worked his whole life,” Mr. Boitel said. “He tried to make sure that he always had food on the table for us.”
His father and mother, who had another son, 32, were born in the Dominican Republic and came to New York when they were young, Mr. Boitel said. They had been married for 42 years. Manuel Boitel was planning to retire soon and had hoped to move somewhere warm, his son said.
“Our plan is to make sure that we get the answers that we need to get and take whatever measures we need to take so that we know exactly what happened to him,” Mr. Boitel said.
Georgia Gee contributed research.
Maria Cramer is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and crime in the city and surrounding areas.
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