Originally Posted 5/07/07
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Mount Kisco, NY – Town of Beford detectives impounded two Mount Kisco police cars after learning that village officers had responded to a 911 call from a homeless Guatemalan immigrant shortly before he was found on the side of a road.
It is unknown whether town police think Rene Perez was in one of those cars the night he was fatally injured. But authorities are looking into what contact Mount Kisco officers had with an inebriated Perez late on April 28.
Perez called Mount Kisco police shortly before 11 p.m. An hour later, a motorist discovered him nearly six miles away, lying unconscious along a desolate stretch of Byram Lake Road in Bedford near the North Castle border. Police said he might have been dumped there. He died early the next morning from what the Westchester medical examiner concluded were internal abdominal injuries.
The patrol cars that were picked up are now parked behind a gate at the state police barracks in Hawthorne. Police wouldn't comment on whether the cars have been searched.
Perez was well-known to Mount Kisco police, who had arrested him at least 59 times and had more than 300 run-ins with him before the killing. He was also known to call police if he was feeling intoxicated or sick.
Detective Lt. Patrick O'Reilly said Perez called 911 at 10:47 p.m. April 28 from the laundry at 520 Lexington Ave. in Mount Kisco. Three officers responded, and the call was "cleared" at 10:55 p.m. after it was determined Perez "did not have a police matter."
O'Reilly said Mount Kisco police are continuing to cooperate with the investigation. [The Journal News]
U/D 12:38 PM
The Police cars are being examined by the Westchester County Forensic Lab, according to a statement released today by the Bedford Police Department.
U/D 2:33 PM
The village’s acting police chief would not address questions today about the possible involvement of Mount Kisco police officers in an immigrant’s death in Bedford.
Chief Louis M. Terlizzi said during a news conference in early afternoon that Mount Kisco police are “seeking the truth” regarding the suspicious April 29 death of a homeless Guatemalan immigrant, Rene Perez, and asked the public to remain patient as the investigation continues.
I’m a very concerned voter and politcal representive. What has happened with these deaths, and the current quashing of the forsaid criminal events.What has happened here is the eptimony of racial profiling. Which raises a larger question, what role did the Mt. Kisco police department play in the recent and current deaths, of are local resisidents
It seems to me that this needs to be investigated by an outside authority.
12:19 duh!!
Is it suspected that police officers killed him?
This has to be fully investigated.
Perez’s death was the third homicide in recent years, all of whom were known to be drinking the night they vanished from the streets of Mount Kisco. Is that the way our police dept. deals with community problems?.
On Dec. 18, 2003, 33-year-old Santos Bojorguez was found strangled by a cord behind the Verizon building on Main Street. And on June 6, 2004, Roberto Martinez, 42, was found strangled at a construction site across from St. Francis Cemetery after he was seen at Cafe La China on Lexington Avenue and at a nearby Rite Aid on South Moger Avenue. Both of those homicides remain unsolved and they say that they are being investigated by the Mount Kisco police.