This has to be one of the saddest and immoral acts commitment by police officers who took an oath to protect and serve the people of New York City.
Funeral services was held yesterday for 11-year-old Briana Ojeda, who was with her mother en route to the hospital Friday when their car was pulled over by an officer who refused to help. According to the deceased girl’s family, she was having a asthma attack and the mother jumped in her car and was trying rush her to the emergency room when she encountered a police officer who she asked to help administer CPR.
Her mother says that she was driving the wrong way down a one-way street in Boerum Hill to rush her daughter to the hospital when she was stopped by a police officer. Ojeda says the officer boxed her in, and when she cried for help for her asthmatic child, he claimed he did not know CPR.
Eventually, the officer did take her to the hospital, but by driving behind her with his lights on.
Brianna died at the hospital about an hour later.
“He could have been a hero, but he chose to be a coward,” said the girl’s aunt, Damaris Ojeda-Melendres. “If he did not know CPR he could have provided an escort to the hospital that was just a short distance away.”
For days after the girl died, her mother urged the officer to come forward as the New York City Police Department worked to determine if it was, in fact, a uniformed officer who was involved.
According to the NYPD, Officer Alfonso Mendez, 30, was identified as the man involved in the incident.
Police say witnesses were able to identify Mendez, who has been on the force for five years and works out of the 84th Precinct, as the officer who failed to help Ojeda.
Sources say he was suspended without pay yesterday for failing to take proper police action.
He was identified through records that showed he filled up his police cruiser just blocks from where the incident took place.
He likely faces an administrative charge. An internal affairs investigation is underway.”
