By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
HARLEM — Assemblyman Keith Wright is calling for an independent investigation into a crash that killed an elderly nun after NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly insisted the getaway car involved was not being chased by police, contrary to some eyewitness reports.
In his first public account of Tuesday's accident in Harlem, Kelly said that NYPD vehicles were not "chasing" a blue Chrysler Pacifica down Lenox Avenue when it crashed into a tan Honda Odyssey at W. 122nd Street, killing Sister Mary Celine Graham, 83 and injuring five others.
Instead, Kelly said, a patrol car was "trailing" the suspects and had activated its lights and sirens, but was about a block and a half away at the time of the crash.
“Police cars did go south behind the car, but they were at least a block away,” Kelly told reporters Wednesday, according to the New York Times.
“I wouldn’t consider that a close pursuit. I would consider it appropriate police tactics. It was an unfortunate series of events that caused a nun to lose her life.”
But that sounds like "a matter of police semantics," said Assemblyman Keith Wright, who told DNAinfo he wanted an independent investigation into the crash.
"If there are eyewitnesses that say that there was a pursuit and others eyewitnesses say there was not a pursuit, it seems to me that someone impartial needs to come up with a determination of whether they were in pursuit or not," Wright said.
Fashion designer Rahco Thompson, 30, said he was in his third floor apartment at 242 Lenox Ave. when he heard the sound of sirens.
"I heard the sirens getting louder and louder and louder and then I heard, 'Boom!'" he said.
He ran to his window overlooking the street and saw someone hop out of the crashed Pacifica, look over at the woman driving the Odyssey, and then run off, Thompson said. As he began to flee, a police car arrived so quickly, he said, it knocked over a street sign.
"The cop car had to be going 60 to 70 [miles an hour]," Thompson said. "He looked like he was determined to catch the guy."
Another witness, 42, who owns a local business and asked that his name be withheld for fear of police retaliation, said he saw a black unmarked car with its lights and siren blazing, trying to catch the Pacifica on Lenox Avenue before the crash.
"It was in pursuit," he said. "A black unmarked car was chasing the car, bottom line, no ifs, ands or buts about it."
Kelly said officers originally stopped the suspects' vehicle at West 142nd Street after they robbed a teenager at gunpoint. But as they were handcuffing William Robbins, 18, the passenger, Dyson Williams, 20, slid behind the wheel and took off.
Three minutes later, Williams allegedly smashed into the Odyssey at W. 122nd Street, spinning into the traffic median and plowing into pedestrians, including Graham and Cruz. Both Harlem teens have been charged with murder and are being held without bail.
Police insist there was no time for a chase to develop. NYPD guidelines say pursuits should be terminated "whenever the risks to uniformed members of the service and the public outweigh the danger to the community if [the] suspect is not immediately apprehended.
City Councilman Peter Vallone defended the NYPD Tuesday, blaming Graham's death on the two suspects.
"The fault for the injuries lies with the thugs, not the police," Vallone said.
Meanwhile, Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio's office is also "actively looking into the issue," a spokesman said.
This incident is not the first time a possible police chase was cited in the death of an innocent bystander.
In January, Karen Schmeer, an award-winning film editor was struck and killed as she crossed Broadway on the Upper West Side by a car being chased by police. After an investigation, the police officer was cleared of any wrongdoing, while the getaway driver was charged with murder.
