STATEN ISLAND — An off-duty police officer and a civilian died when another officer behind the wheel drove the wrong way up a Staten Island highway and smashed into a tractor trailer, police said.
They had been on their way home to New Jersey after a night out at a Staten Island strip club called Curves, police sources said.
Joseph Rodriguez, 28, who was seated on the front passenger side of the vehicle, died at the scene, according to the NYPD. Frank Viggiano, 28, a reported Linden police officer, was taken to Staten Island University Hospital South and pronounced dead shortly after, police said.
The 27-year-old driver and the 23-year-old passenger in the back left seat were off-duty police officers and were injured seriously, police said. The two officers were in stable but critical condition in two Staten Island hospitals.
All three police officers worked in Linden, New Jersey, a spokesman for that police department said. One 28-year-old man who died was a civilian.
The fatal collision happened just before 5 a.m. on Friday morning on the West Shore Expressway, near Arthur Kill Road.
The driver of the tractor trailer suffered minor injuries and was taken to a nearby hospital.
One firefighter also sustained minor injuries during the rescue and was taken to Richmond University Medical Center, FDNY said.
Police said the car was traveling north in the southbound lane of the road. Investigators were trying to find out how it came to be in the wrong lane.
