GWB road rage shooting: Questions surround ex-NYPD detective's arrest for manslaughter

There is a big question this morning. The question is, will the former NYPD detective accused of pulling the trigger make bail? We're talking about that shooting that happened on the George Washington Bridge earlier this week. Francis Wang is outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan. Francis, we also obviously got the news yesterday that Victor Romero no longer facing murder charges, but those charges have been reduced already. What are we hearing this morning? Yeah, well, Dan, I mean, a lot has changed since we were just talking about this story on Newsroom Live at this hour yesterday. In fact, I think we were waiting for him to make his first appearance in court. And then that happened later in the afternoon following his first appearance before a judge, whereas you mentioned those charges were downgraded from murder to manslaughter. His family and their attorneys who were all present also held a press conference where they essentially not only expressed their heartbreak over losing their loved one, but also their outrage. So notably absent was his wife and his two young kids. You can imagine they are still shocked and grieving and that is not a clear process of expecting them to be there. But his sister spoke, his aunt spoke, even the wife of his best friend and best man was there. And they talked about that charge being downgraded to manslaughter. They were very confused by it. They were also frustrated because they even expressed They had taken the time to request a meeting with the district attorney before that court appearance. They requested that this man, Victor Romero, the suspect here, a former NYPD detective, be remanded and to be held without bail. Not only did the DA not follow their request, they did request a million dollars bail, but the judge granted it. So the family, very distraught, very disappointed. And they essentially alleged that this suspect is being treated differently because he was a former NYPD detective. They even asked us at the press conference, the lawyers, do you guys have a photo of this man? Do you have a video? And you could hear the members of the media saying no, because oftentimes when we cover a case like this, at some point we do get video of the suspect being transferred from the precinct. We do get photos or videos perhaps of who this person is, but we still at this point have no image of Victor Romero, which again, the family and their lawyers are pointing out is part of the problem here and what they believe to be preferential treatment and just to sort of just just go back just a little bit um if we can francis so victor romero held at rikers island the judge setting that million dollar bond prosecutors at even yesterday at the the hearing did say he fired a single shot from his suv killing the 46 year old con ed employee the father the husband um and then sped away without calling 9-1-1 initially it appeared that it was going to be a murder charge. But did they give any reasoning as far as we can tell as to why it was already reduced to manslaughter? Because sometimes that's something that happens after they negotiate a little further, if you're going to move forward with the court process. What happened in court when we got that news? Well, interestingly enough, Dan, that you bring that up because the family actually says they left that courtroom without that clarity. They point out that not only did this suspect intentionally tailgate their loved one before he fired that weapon and then drove off, he never called 911. In fact, the sister of the victim, Karan Irvin, she pointed out that it could have led to other fatalities or other people being injured, right? Because you may remember Mr. Irvin actually crashed into the median before officers responded. So at this point, there's not a lot of clarity into why that charge has been downgraded. But that's the question that many people are asking, a question we've been asking as well as the family of the victim. And we did get a viewer who did scan a question there into our newsroom. So I haven't had a chance to take a look at this, but they did tell me it just came in. Let's take a look at what the question is. And again, you can scan the QR code right there on your screen, whether you want to talk about this story or anything else that we are tracking this morning. Okay, so this is from Linda Acevedo. She says, why hasn't the detectives picture been published um some of what we're we've been addressing you know oftentimes if there's not a mugshot uh if there's no social media um you know some of that doesn't come to light i think one of the uh the sound bites that we do have there allison i think the family um sort of talks about that not that one not that one the one furthest to the right i believe this is the uh family attorney um so let's take a listen uh he he talks about some of these issues and after that we can play the other two soundbites that we have there. Okay, let's take this. When somebody leaves a job like the NYPD law enforcement and they leave it under the auspices of an investigation, should they be allowed to keep their service right? Our position is no, they shouldn't. So Dan, that soundbite is actually coming out of the families and their attorneys pointing out that in 2000 this officer was actually a detective with NYPD he was shot in an off-duty incident involving his family business it's a laundromat in Brooklyn so he was actually in the middle of an investigation from CCRB that is the Civilian Complaint Review Board but some people may not know this but essentially if you are being investigated by that independent board, not an internal review, and you retire, that investigation could essentially end without any sort of completion. And so that's something that the family and their attorneys point to as well, kind of questioning why he may have retired following that shootout. They also point out that NYPD officers are allowed to keep their service weapons upon retirement. And you have to remember, Dan, this man retired in 2001. So it's been uh 25 years it's not clear whether or not that was the weapon he used to fire in this road rage dispute but the family and their attorneys certainly seem to believe it might have been and uh we do have one other uh question here or more of a comment um so let's see if we can go ahead and show that uh Juan Carlos Rojas uh says the fact that there were charges and lowered as an insult victim had killed uh the retired detective the book would have been thrown game certainly um an opinion of one of our viewers out there today and we do have this emotional um piece of sound that we can play from the family and those two we can play um back to back so let's go ahead and listen a retired police officer intentionally fired a bullet and killed him and instead of it being murder it's called manslaughter my brother is a hero he's my hero and i talk to him every single day on that commute that he does to go home recklessness and ego of the road rager to take my brother's life all right and uh francis again uh just as we wrap up here the big question soundbite yep the big big question here uh francis will victor romero uh this retired NYPD detective now being held at Rikers Island make that one million dollar bond um i know you've reached out to his attorneys this morning what are you hearing oh we have not heard back yet uh as of this morning the inmate custody records seem to show that he is still in custody he is scheduled to make his next court appearance either Monday or Tuesday. There's kind of discrepancy there between the inmate records as well as the court records. But at some point next week, have not yet heard from his attorney. So we'll keep you updated and let you know, of course, if he does make that bail. But again, the family, very disappointed. They even point out that he was painted as a family man, a father of four, to which Irvin's family said, our loved one was a family man. And he's the one who didn't make it home that night because of what this person did. So just a very emotionally driven press conference, heartbreak, but also frustration, anger and confusion. So we'll definitely be keeping an eye out on developments because this story, as you mentioned, has been our top story all week with developments throughout the week and constantly changing. So we'll keep you updated, Dan. All right, Frances Wang, thank you very much for your thorough reporting on this, staying on top of it all week long, Frances. Thank you.