A 19-year-old suspected car thief is facing attempted-murder charges after leading NYPD cops on a harrowing caught-on-camera chase that nearly killed a young child and left an officer hospitalized, police said Tuesday.
The chase ended on rooftops where a cop jumped from building to building to take suspect Keyah Richardson into custody.
Nearly two dozen cops in uniform sat in the gallery as a Queens Criminal Court judge ordered Richardson held without bail Tuesday on a raft of charges including attempted murder of a police officer, vehicular assault, reckless endangerment, leaving the scene of an accident and car theft.
“He ran out of road to run and was trapped,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said on X. “We were finally able to end this suspect’s criminal rampage and apprehend him.”
Startling NYPD body camera footage shows cops blocking Richardson in a stolen white Infiniti on 34th Ave. near 99th St. in Jackson Heights around 5 p.m. Sunday.
Officer Ryan Loeffel, a member of the NYPD’s Community Response Team, approached the Infiniti with his weapon drawn, telling the teen not to move. But Richardson threw the car in reverse and backed up onto the sidewalk, nearly hitting a child with her mother, the video shows.
Richardson slammed his Infiniti into an iron fence as the cop ran up to the driver’s door. “Get out of the car!” Loeffel screamed while trying to open the door.
Richardson, wearing a black hoodie, ignored the cop’s demands and threw the car into drive and crashed into a nearby car, sending another approaching cop, Officer Bartholomew Tully onto the hood of a parked car as the teen sped off the wrong way down the street, the video shows.
Tully suffered injuries to his hip and knee after he was nearly crushed, prosecutors said Tuesday.
“[He] accelerates at an officer, strikes the officer as he tries to jump out of the way, pins the same cop between his car and a parked vehicle and then takes off,” Daughtry said. “Our officer is being treated at a local area hospital for thankfully non-life-threatening injuries.”
Richardson sideswiped several cars as he sped off against traffic, the video shows.
“Our police officers gave clear commands for this individual to pull over that car and this individual refused to pull over,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said outside Queens Criminal Court Tuesday, where Richardson was being arraigned. “He then put everyone around him in danger, and he came within feet of running down a young child and an adult.”
“He didn’t think twice about running down a police officer in full uniform in broad daylight,” Hendry added.
Richardson ditched the stolen Infiniti, then ran into a nearby No. 7 train station, according to cops. He scrambled off the elevated platform back down onto the street, then scaled a ladder to the roof of a building before cops grabbed him.
The minute-long clip released by the NYPD jumps ahead to a cop running along the lip of a nearby rooftop and jumping onto an adjacent building to take Richardson into custody.
Richardson is seen facedown on the rooftop.
“I didn’t do anything!” he screams as the cop handcuffs him. “I didn’t do anything!”
FDNY firefighters utilized a tower ladder to bring Richardson back down to street level, where he was taken into custody.
“Thanks to extraordinary police work, this defendant was arrested before anyone else could be harmed,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “I am grateful that the injured officer is recuperating from his injuries.”
Richardson lives in Brownsville, Brooklyn, according to cops. He has been arrested multiple times before, but those arrests are sealed, police sources say.
“This judge today sent a clear message and remanded this individual,” Hendry said. “That’s the message that needs to be sent in every courtroom in every courthouse across this city. Anyone who tries to kill a New York City police officer is a danger to every single New Yorker and deserves to stay behind bars.”