News: NYPD Officer from East Islip Killed On-duty
(Long Island, N.Y.) Forty-two-year-old Alain Schaberger was killed on Sunday after responding to a 4:22am 911 call concerning a domestic dispute in Brooklyn. The ten-year-veteran police officer, who had worked six years on the night shift with the 84th Precinct, was pushed off a staircase by a violent suspect. He’s the fifth law enforcement officer to be killed on-duty in New York in 2011.
Three officers responded to the victim’s call and showed up to her residence where the suspect, her long time boyfriend, allegedly threatened her life. The second 911 call came five minutes after the first and was made by the building’s security guard. Once the officers arrived at the scene, the victim informed them that the suspect had fled for refuge at his father’s St. Mark’s Place apartment in Boerum Hill.
The suspect’s father tried to conceal his son’s location and evade the officers before eventually telling them that he was sleeping inside the home. Officers had brought the forty-eight-year-old victim to the scene and kept her in the patrol car for purposes of identifying the suspect. Once the suspect was located, officers brought him onto the porch where he was identified and shackled.
With one arm handcuffed, the five foot eight one hundred sixty pound suspect pushed the five foot eight one hundred eighty pound officer over the twenty-one inch railing. The railing led to a concrete stairwell over the basement. Schaberger landed on his head, fracturing his neck, but still maintained a pulse when fellow officers came to revive him.
Schaberger was rushed to Lutheran Hospital but was pronounced dead at roughly seven that morning. The forty-year-old suspect from Brooklyn had prior instances of domestic abuse towards the same woman; she had previously acquired an order of protection against him. Following the arrest, the remaining officers tasered him twice as he attempted to escape by breaking through the patrol car window. Some reports say he drank as many as twelve beers earlier that night.
The suspect had an extensive history of domestic violence and twenty-eight prior arrests for robbery. Some reports say that similar incidents of domestic disturbance happened in February and January of this year. The 84th Precinct squad claims to have responded twelve times to calls involving the couple. The NYPD receives as many as six-hundred domestic violence calls a day and 250,000 each year, many of which are unpredictable.
Charges against the suspect include first-degree murder, aggravated murder of a police officer, criminal contempt of court, and assault. If convicted, the suspect could face life in prison without parole. He was led out of the 88th Precinct for his arraignment where he was held without bail and asked for his brother’s number. His brother claims there was more to the story, and that the death could have been a mutual struggle resulting in an accidental fatality, but he offers his condolences to the officer’s grieving family.
Schaberger was a US Navy veteran, having served from 1991-1995. He came to the US with his father at age five from Vietnam where his father served as an army veteran and civilian guard for the US Embassy during the 1975 fall of Saigon. Schaberger has a Vietnamese mother and graduated from East Islip High School in 1987.
After enrolling in the Police Academy, Schaberger saw early action following the 911 terrorist attacks and will be buried wearing a crest honoring the twenty-three NYPD officers who died that day. His funeral is on Friday at the Long Island National Cemetery and fellow officers paid their respects by visiting the hospital. The girlfriend of his alleged killer is scheduled to finally testify against him, while the prosecution aims for a swift conviction.
