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03-25-2011, 11:43 AM
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Bellmore EMT Wounded, Driver Killed by Police
Bellmore volunteer firefighter and EMT Justin Angell, 20, was shot and wounded, and police killed the driver, Jason Beller, 31, of Commack, after a routine crash dispatch turned into a gunfight on a Nassau County street on Tuesday, March 1, 2011. Nassau County police said the first report came in at 9:57 p.m. that a pickup truck had hit a utility pole on Bellmore Avenue near Claxton Avenue. Bellmore Fire Department members were sent to the scene as a motor vehicle accident. Angell was among the first to reach the truck. As he came up on the vehicle, the driver opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle. Police said Angell was struck once in the hip and collapsed on a nearby lawn. Other responders moved an ambulance between the truck and the wounded man and drove him to Nassau University Medical Center. "We were told it was a routine traffic accident," Bellmore Fire Chief Robert Taylor told NBC New York. "All hell broke loose." Seventh Precinct officers and a canine unit arrived and exchanged fire with the driver, who stayed inside the wrecked truck. A K-9 officer moved up on the passenger side and fired. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene. Officers recovered six firearms in and around the pickup, among them a scoped rifle strapped to Beller's chest, a revolver in his lap, a small semi-automatic pistol in a pocket and a TEC-9 style pistol behind the passenger seat. Ammunition was strapped to his forearm. Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said afterward that "it is clear to us that this man was out to commit mayhem in this county." Investigators never publicly identified an intended target and did not state a motive. Suffolk County police said officers had gone to Beller's Commack home about two hours before the crash on a domestic disturbance call, and that the woman who called declined to press charges and spoke with a domestic violence advocate. He had a prior arrest for petit larceny and no record of violent crime. Relatives told CBS New York he had been extremely troubled, and apologized to Angell. Angell was released from the hospital two days after the shooting with a recovery estimated at three to four weeks and said he intended to go back to the fire department. On March 22, 2011, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano presented him with the county's Valor Award, the first Mangano had given. The recording is radio traffic from that night, running about thirteen minutes. The opening stretch is Bellmore Fire Department dispatch and unit traffic on the crash call, and the audio then shifts to Nassau County police transmissions as units are sent in, the shooting is called out and the scene is locked down. It is a logging tape rather than a single call, so unrelated routine traffic runs alongside the incident.
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