Crime & Safety
Nassau Police Officer Killed in Massapequa Park
The victim is the second county cop killed in the line of duty in a little more than a month.
UPDATE: Officials have ID'd the slain Nassau police officer as Geoffrey J. Breitkopf, 40, a 12-year vet.
A Nassau County Police officer was shot and killed Saturday night in Massapequa Park, police said.
The victim, a plain-clothed special operations officer, was reportedly chasing a suspect near the Long Island Rail Road along Front Street when he was shot by another cop.
Find out what's happening in Massapequawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The officer was transported to Nassau University Medical Center, where he died of his wounds at 9:19 p.m., according to NUMC Public Affairs Director Shelley Lotenberg.
Two other officers were sent to the hospital with trauma-related injuries, according to a police spokesman. The suspect, meanwhile, was also shot and killed.
Find out what's happening in Massapequawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
According to detectives, police first came on the scene when a suspicious person with weapons was walking near Front Street. The officers chased the subject eastbound on Front Street, where he fled on foot to a residence at 5 Fourth Street. The suspect then barricaded himself inside a room at that location. Officers entered the residence. At that point, the suspect, identified in one report as Anthony DiGeronimo, emerged from the room with a knife and attacked the officers. That's when the officers shot and killed the suspect.
The Nassau Police officer was also shot, accidentally, at that time.
As for DiGeronimo, according to his Facebook profile, he was an anarchist, and he listed his religious view as Theistic Satanist.
This marks the second death in the line of duty this year for Nassau police. Prior, no county cops had been killed in the line of duty since 1993.
