NY Officer Shoots Suspect During Sex Assault

--

Oct. 9--An officer shot and killed a man who was sexually assaulting a woman he had carjacked in New Hyde Park Thursday night as the suspect struggled with another officer, a police source said.

A woman leaving the Stop and Shop supermarket on Hillside Avenue was confronted by Frankie Hernandez, 26, of New Hyde Park, police and law enforcement sources said. The suspect was masked and brandishing a gun, a source said.

The woman, who is unidentified but is in her early 20s, according to the source, may have been distracted because she was talking on a cell phone.

Hernandez forced the woman into her car and had her drive to the back of the supermarket, where he forced her to perform a sex act, the source said.

He then had her drive to a second location nearby, where police responding to a 911 call pulled him over, the source said.

"She's naked. He's got his pants down," a source said.

The officer ordered the semiclothed Hernandez out of the car, but he allegedly refused and told the officer, "Be prepared to die."

There was a struggle, and the officer's gun fell, although it's not clear if the gun fell before or after the struggle.

A second officer with Nassau's Third Precinct who had arrived in another car then shot Hernandez two or three times, the source said.

"All indications are that this was a justified shooting," said Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a department spokesman.

Police did not immediately say if anyone else was injured.

"He's really shook up about the whole thing," the source said of the officer who shot Hernandez.

The shooting happened within the jurisdiction of the Williston Park-based Third Precinct. The supermarket is at 653 Hillside Ave.

Hernandez pleaded guilty in 2004 to criminal possession of a controlled substance as a violation and a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, records show. He has not served any time in prison, according to records.

A woman who answered the door at Hernandez's home on North Sixth Street said the family was in shock.

"He was the nicest guy in the world," she said.

Nassau police last seriously wounded a suspect on Sept. 26 in Hempstead, when Antoine Taylor was critically wounded by an officer who said Taylor tried to run him over during a traffic stop over a parole violation.

Taylor, 32, survived, but was hospitalized in critical condition. The department said the shooting was justifiable self-defense and that the shooter, a 45-year-old Bureau of Special Operations officer, was put on sick leave and may have hurt his hand in the confrontation.