Retired NYPD Detective Arrested and Charged with Murder in George Washington Bridge Road-Rage Killing of Con Edison Worker Koran Irvine

NEW YORK — A long-retired New York City police detective was arrested on Wednesday, October 21, in the road-rage killing of a motorist on the George Washington Bridge, police said, the Associated Press reported. Victor Romero, 62, was charged with murder in the death of Koran Irvine, 46, who was found wounded and unconscious in the driver's seat of a vehicle on the New Jersey-bound side of the bridge's upper level just after 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Irvine, of Valley Cottage, New York, was pronounced dead at a hospital. The shooting near the end of the evening rush snarled traffic for hours on the busy Hudson River span that connects Manhattan and Fort Lee, New Jersey.

The NYPD told People magazine that shortly after 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 20, officers responded to a 911 call about a male shot on the "outbound, upper-level roadway" of the George Washington Bridge; on arrival, Irvine was discovered "unconscious and unresponsive" in the driver's seat of his vehicle with a gunshot wound to the rear of the right shoulder, and he was transported to Englewood Hospital, where he was pronounced deceased. Police later identified Romero as the suspect; he was taken into custody and charged with murder on Wednesday, the NYPD confirmed to People. The department confirmed that Romero is a former NYPD employee who has been retired for 25 years, and that the shooting "appears to be" connected to a road-rage incident, though that will "be determined by investigators." Romero was awaiting arraignment on Wednesday night, the New York Post reported; according to the Post, citing sources, Romero admitted to investigators that he was the shooter and handed the gun to police. A telephone number listed for Romero in public records rang unanswered, and information on a lawyer who could comment on his behalf was not immediately available, the AP said.

Romero, of Haverstraw, New York, retired from the New York Police Department in 2001, the AP reported. In June 2000 he was wounded in the hand and chest in an off-duty shootout with men attempting to rob his family's Brooklyn laundromat; using his service weapon, Romero shot one of the men in the stomach, arm and leg, and another man in the legs, according to news accounts from the time. Romero, a drug detective in Brooklyn, had been working for the NYPD for six years when the laundromat shooting occurred, according to a New York Post article from the time cited by the AP.

Irvine worked for Con Edison, the utility said in a statement, calling the shooting a "senseless act of violence." "Our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends, colleagues, and everyone who knew and loved him," the company said. Closed bridge lanes reopened about five hours after the shooting, the span's operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said. Opened to traffic in 1931, the double-decked bridge carries around 100 million vehicles each year, according to the Port Authority, which calls it the world's busiest, the AP said.

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons · Beyond My Ken · CC BY-SA 4.0

Latest in States

Kilauea's Episode 56 Lava Fountaining Forecast for November 3-10 as the Summit Keeps Inflating2026-10-31Man Critically Injured in Early-Morning Cutting in Downtown Omaha; One Man Arrested2026-10-31