Gothamist covers the attempts by the family of Ryo Oyamada to add federal constitutional claims to their complaint against the NYPD and the officer who killed Ryo.
After Officer Darren Ilardi fatally struck 24-year-old Ryo Oyamada with his police cruiser in Queensbridge last year, the NYPD purposefully destroyed evidence, failed to properly investigate the crash, and engaged in a “cover-up,” according to a set of recently filed court documents.
Officers responding to the scene dispersed all eyewitnesses, failed to measure skid marks, and did not check Ilardi’s cell phone records to determine if he was using his phone when he struck the 24-year-old student outside a deli near the intersection of 40th Avenue and 10th Street, the filings claim.
The filings contain redactions because law enforcement techniques and personnel files of city employees are usually given protection by the court, but they suggest that the NYPD destroyed video evidence of the crash itself:
Videorecordings made by surveillance cameras near the crash scene recorded four different police vehicles approaching the scene of the crash, but NYPD [REDACTED], making it impossible to identify which of the four different vehicles depicted was Ilardi’s. It is impossible to view these snippets of videorecordings [REDACTED] and not wonder why images of the actual crash were omitted.
Click here for the entire report.