Developing: Victor Romero, a retired NYPD detective, has been arrested and charged with murder in connection with the fatal shooting of a Con Edison worker on the George Washington Bridge, according to multiple local and national reports.
News 12 reported that Romero, 62, of Haverstraw, New York, was arrested and charged after Tuesday night’s shooting on the bridge’s outbound upper level. The outlet said the victim was 46-year-old Koran Irvine of Valley Cottage and that police initially responded to what was reported as a crash before finding Irvine unconscious in his vehicle with a gunshot wound.
The New York Daily News reported that investigators believe the shooting stemmed from a road-rage clash and that police had video showing a black Range Rover involved in the killing. The Daily News also reported that Romero retired from the NYPD in 2001 after a previous off-duty shootout in a Brooklyn laundromat.
The Associated Press, as carried by KOB, likewise reported that Romero was charged with murder in the death of Irvine, who was found wounded and unconscious in the driver’s seat on the New Jersey-bound side of the bridge’s upper level just after 7 p.m. Tuesday. The AP said the bridge traffic was snarled for hours after the shooting.
Officials have not publicly laid out a full motive, and the sequence of events remains under investigation. It is also not clear from the available reports whether Romero was taken into custody after surrendering or was located by police.
Con Edison said in a statement that it was “heartbroken” by the loss of a member of its workforce and called the killing a “senseless act of violence.”