Linden Police Officer Had BAC Three Times Legal Limit at Time of Crash
Linden, New Jersey, police officer Pedro Abad, the driver of the car in which two passengers were killed in a horrific accident in March, is still on the city’s payroll, even though authorities have confirmed that he was highly intoxicated at the time of the crash. The Linden Police Department’s public information officer acknowledged that Abad had not been suspended, noting that an investigation was underway and that no charges had been filed against Abad. Douglas Auer, speaking on behalf of the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office, offered no comment, saying the investigation had not been completed.
The Linden Police Department employee policy manual requires that any officer charged with a first, second or third-degree crime must be immediately suspended. Officers may also be suspended if they are determined to be “unfit for duty” or to present “a hazard to any person if permitted to remain on the job.”
A spokesperson for the Staten Island District Attorney’s office told reporters last week that blood alcohol tests confirmed that Abad had a BAC at approximately three times the legal limit when he struck a semi head on while traveling the wrong way on the West Shore Expressway on March 20. Abad and another Linden police officer, Patrik Kudlac, have been hospitalized since the crash, but two other passengers, one a fellow Linden policeman, died in the accident. NYPD officers say the four men were at the Curves Gentleman’s Club, in Staten Island, before the crash.
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