After driving a vehicle into Jamaica Bay while off-duty with a felon, an NYPD officer has been stripped of her gun and badge while placed on modified duty. According to police sources, the officer was disciplined for associating with a known felon, not for driving the vehicle into the water.
Around 8:45 p.m. on Wednesday, off-duty NYPD Officer Halima Hadire was sitting in a Cadillac with Metin Kurtulus who has been arrested at least three times, including a recent arrest for criminal possession of a weapon. According to Kurtulus, he was allowing Hadire to test-drive his vehicle when she mistakenly hit the accelerator instead of the brake pedal and drove into Jamaica Bay.
“She was looking for a new car, she tested my car,” Kurtulus told The New York Post. “She lost control of the vehicle, and we ended up in the water.”
As the Cadillac began sinking into the drink, the couple managed to escape from the submerging vehicle and swim back to shore. After Kurtulus and Hadire were transported to Coney Island Hospital for medical treatment, an NYPD Scuba team flagged the murky location where the car sank so it could be removed at a later date.
The vehicle reportedly stopped 50 feet from shore in all around 20 to 25ft of drinking water.
An NYPD spokesperson told The New York Daily News, “The Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating the incident.”
Barred from knowingly associating with felons, Hadire was placed on modified duty and stripped of her gun and badge. No criminal arrests have been made regarding the submerged vehicle.
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