A New York City man was charged with murder Friday after authorities say he hijacked an ambulance and ran over and killed an emergency medical technician Thursday evening.
The Washington Post reports that 25-year-old Jose Gonzalez proclaimed his innocence as he was led out of a Bronx, N.Y., police precinct Friday morning while angry EMTs in uniforms shouted insults at him.
“I’m innocent,” Gonzalez told reporters. “I didn’t do nothing.”
Gonzalez was charged with three counts of murder, grand larceny and operating a motor vehicle while impaired, the Post reports, and an arraignment is scheduled for Friday.
Yadira Arroyo, 44, was a 14-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department and a mother of five. She was killed Thursday night after Gonzalez seized the ambulance she was driving and struck her with it. Arroyo’s partner was also injured in the incident but is in stable condition.
Arroyo was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center.
Speaking from the medical center Thursday night, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “An EMT was lost in the line of duty, bravely doing her job and encountering the kind of danger that our EMTs should not have to confront. They should not ever have to be subjected to violence, and yet that danger always exists for them.”
From WaPo:
Arroyo had been driving the ambulance through the Bronx, with another female EMT in the passenger seat, when a passerby flagged down the ambulance at about 7 p.m. and told them a man was riding on the rear bumper, police said.
Both Arroyo and the other EMT exited the ambulance, Nigro said. Arroyo, who left the ambulance door open, was approaching the man, later identified as Gonzalez, who then moved around her and went inside the ambulance. Gonzalez threw the ambulance into reverse, knocking Arroyo to the ground, according to police. That’s when he ran over Arroyo and dragged her as he drove over a sidewalk and to an intersection, striking several parked cars along the way, authorities said.
According to the Post, a witness captured video of the incident.
“We lost a good woman,” de Blasio said. “She started her shift today like every other day, and then a senseless act of violence takes her life.”
Read more at the Washington Post.