A 12-year veteran of the Nassau County Police Department was killed Saturday night by an officer who mistook him for a suspect.
Geoffrey Breitkopf, 40, a 12-year member of Nassau County’s Special Operations Bureau, was responding to a call about a knife-wielding Satanist.
Theresa Kelly called police when she saw Anthony DiGeronimo, 21, with a knife near her car.
“He was smiling at me and waving a knife,” Kelly told Metro. “I screamed and he ran way.”
Kelly, a 71-year-old retired hairdresser, called 911 about DiGeronimo, who she said was wearing “a black studded vest, with a mask with chains on it.”
DiGeronimo barricaded himself inside his Fourth Avenue home. When DiGeronimo lunged at cops with a knife, they shot him.
Minutes later, Breitkopf arrived armed and in plain clothes to provide backup assistance.
Walking with a rifle, police said he was shot by a Metropolitan Transit Authority police officer.
The flag at the Special Operations Bureau was at half-staff Sunday.
Breitkopf is survived by his wife Paula and two young sons, Connor, 6, and Owen, 3. Nassau County police officer James Carver told Metro no funeral arrangements have been made.
2011 deadly for Nassau County cops
Geoffrey Breitkopf is the second Nassau County police officer to die this year. Before 2011, no Nassau County police officer died in the line of duty since 1993. Officer Michael J. Califano of Wantaugh was killed Feb. 5 during a traffic stop on the Long Island Expressway. Connecticut trucker John Kaley, 25, fell asleep at the wheel and slammed into Califano’s parked patrol car. Kaley was charged with criminally negligent homicide.
