Submitted by Fox First at Ten on October 24th
By FRANK ELTMAN and TOM HAYSAssociated Press
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) - An ex-convict suspected of gunning down a police officer near the Belmont Park racetrack and then shooting to death a carjacking victim was transferred from a hospital to police headquarters on Wednesday, a police spokeswoman said.
Darrell Fuller had been taken to a hospital in New York City on Tuesday after police say he suffered self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Police say he was arrested hours after he fatally shot a Nassau County officer who suspected he had been involved in a hit-and-run car accident.
The 33-year-old Queens man also is suspected of fleeing that shooting and then killing a man while carjacking his vehicle.
No formal charges have been filed against Fuller, who was in custody and couldn't be reached for comment. It was unknown if he had an attorney.
A spokesman for the Nassau district attorney said an arraignment would not take place until Thursday at the earliest.
The police spokeswoman did not discuss Fuller's condition. She said only that he was being taken from the hospital to police headquarters, presumably to be questioned in the investigation.
Nassau County Officer Arthur Lopez died Tuesday after getting shot in what had started out as a traffic stop near Belmont Park. The 29-year-old Lopez was on patrol in Bellerose Terrace, a community at the border of New York City's Queens borough and Nassau County. He and his partner spotted a damaged silver Honda that was "running on rims," suspecting it was wanted for leaving the scene of a hit-and-run accident, authorities said.
The officers followed the car, and it pulled over. There was "a brief exchange of words" between Lopez and the driver before the driver left the vehicle and fired one round into Lopez's chest, police Chief Steven Skrynecki said, adding that the officer wasn't wearing a bulletproof vest.
The second officer administered first aid to Lopez, officials said, and was later hospitalized for trauma.
The shooter got back into his car and drove away, and then accosted 52-year-old Queens resident Raymond Facey, authorities said. He shot the Queens man in the head, dragged him out of his car and left him dead on the roadway and then drove away, they said. The car later was found abandoned in a residential neighborhood in Queens.
Early Tuesday evening, a 911 caller reported hearing gunfire in Queens amid the massive manhunt for Fuller. Responding officers found him in a vehicle - not the one carjacked - with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Fuller served four years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted murder in 2005, authorities said. He was jailed again in 2010 after violating his parole on a drug arrest but was released in May 2011.
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Hays reported from New York.
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