A woman who says NYPD cops deliberately botched the investigation of a deadly drunk-driving crash to protect an off-duty cop now has a smoking gun in her lawsuit — thanks to the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, the Daily News has learned.
Internal Affairs Bureau records obtained by Nia Jasmine Reynolds’ lawyers reveal cellphone GPS data that puts the off-duty cop blamed in the Brooklyn crash in a bar minutes before, new court filings reveal.
Former officer Rohan Shaw is accused of T-boning a Mazda with his white 2019 Nissan GT-R in East Flatbush on Dec. 8, 2019, a crash that severely injured Reynolds and killed her best friend, Joanna Dixon.
Officers at the scene tested Shaw with an uncalibrated Breathalyzer machine and failed to take a timely blood sample, Reynolds alleges in a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
As a result, it was impossible to determine how drunk Shaw was at the time of the 5 a.m. collision, the lawsuit charges. Dixon was killed just three days after her 23rd birthday. She and Reynolds were returning home from celebrating another friend’s birthday when the crash occurred.
Reynolds believes the officers deliberately tampered with the evidence to spare Shaw from being prosecuted. Drunk or drugged motorists blamed in fatal crashes are nearly the only people who can be charged under New York’s vehicular homicide law.
But “more than 500 previously unknown electronic records, including the parallel internal (NYPD) investigation about the handling of the motor vehicle accident” now proves that Shaw was at a bar before the crash and that his speech was slurred when he called 911, says Reynolds’ lawyer, Eric Sanders.
Additionally, Sanders said, officers did not activate their body worn cameras when responding to the scene.
The discoveries bolster Reynold’s case, the lawyer said.
“Now that we know the dirty little secret of the responding police officers intentionally tampering with evidence to protect retired Police Officer Shaw from…
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