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Feb. 27--Suffolk police arrested a Huntington Station man early Sunday after they said he drove his car into two off-duty Nassau County police officers, one of whom shot and wounded him.
The Nassau County officers had pulled over in separate cars on the side of Oakwood Road in Huntington Station when taxi driver Thomas Moroughan, of West 19th Street, pulled up behind them. The men became engaged in a verbal altercation, Suffolk police said.
Moroughan then drove his taxi toward one of the officers, who was outside of his vehicle, Suffolk police said.
One of the officers, who were not named by Suffolk police, fired his personal weapon into the taxi, identified himself as an officer and told Moroughan to exit the taxi, Suffolk police said. Moroughan refused, they said, and struck both officers with his taxi when the second officer came to assist.
Moroughan went to Huntington Hospital for treatment of wounds to his chest and forearm, Suffolk police said. His injuries were not life-threatening, Suffolk police said. Moroughan was later arrested and charged with second-degree reckless endangerment and second-degree assault.
The police officers sustained minor injuries and were treated at the same hospital, Suffolk police said.
The circumstances surrounding the altercation remain under investigation, said Suffolk Det. Lt. Gerard Pelkofsky. Police are investigating "the legality of the incident," he said, adding that the officer's guns were legally possessed and that the investigation is "not an investigation of the men, it's an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the shooting."
He added that the officer who fired the shot "was in fear of his life -- he was in fear that he was going to get run over by this guy."
The shooting occurred near the intersection of Oakwood Road and Tippin Drive, near Stimson Middle School, at 1:18 a.m., a Suffolk police spokeswoman said.
Moroughan was to be transferred into police custody once he is able to leave the hospital, police said, and is expected to be arraigned Monday at District Court in Central Islip.
William Petrillo, an attorney for Moroughan, said his client will plead not guilty. Petrillo, of Rockville Centre, said Sunday that the shooting was unnecessary and that his client did not behave as aggressively as police claim.
"It's an unjustified shoot. These are fabricated charges in an effort to try to justify a bad shooting," he said. "There was a verbal dispute, which led to an overreaction on the part of the off-duty officer."
The off-duty Nassau officers are patrolmen, Pelkofsky said. They had pulled over on Oakwood Road because they were lost, he said.
A Nassau police spokesman declined to comment on the shooting.
