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NYPD Officer Anastasios Tsakos, age 43, was killed around 2 a.m., Tuesday, April 27, assisting another officer by diverting vehicles off the expressway, said NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea.
"The absolutely tragic events of this past evening highlight – again – the many, many dangers our brave officers face every day and night – in all aspects of their critical work," Shea said.
Shea said Tsakos was hit by a 2013 Volkswagen Passat traveling eastbound on the LIE, near the Clearview Expressway.
"As other vehicles are maneuvering off the highway, this Volkswagen continued to travel at a very high rate of speed, swerved, and struck Officer Tsakos head-on, knocking him hundreds of feet down the roadway," he added.
The driver of the car, a 32-year-old woman from Hempstead, fled the scene in the Volkswagen by continuing to drive off the exit, Shea said.
Additional responding officers followed the woman and were able to stop her at 21st Street and Horace Harding Expressway in Queens.·
Tsakos, a husband, and the father of two young children, joined the force in January 2007 and was "a very highly regarded cop assigned to Highway Unit 3," Shea added.
The woman who hit Tsakos is in NYPD custody and will be charged later Tuesday.
"I can tell you that she was intoxicated at the time of the crash," Shea said.
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