FEBRUARY 27, 2015
GREENBURGH, NEW YORK
Hartsdale resident Paul Duncan, a detective in the New York
Police Department, was killed early Friday morning when a wrong-way driver on
the Sprain Brook Parkway crashed into his car.
Duncan, 46, lived with his wife Rechelle and their daughter.
He was a 17-year member of the NYPD and served on the Internal Affairs Bureau's
narcotics team.
"He was a wonderful father," Rechelle Duncan's
sister, Raquel Abraham, said outside of the family's Chaucer Street home on
Friday. "He really was a decent man."
Paul and Rechelle Duncan were high school sweethearts who
recently celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary, Abraham said. She added
that he was looking forward to retiring soon and starting a business for
at-risk individuals.
"He was always trying to help folks," said Jeffrey
Streeter, Rechelle Duncan's uncle. "He just wanted to try to make a
difference in his community. It's a rough pill to swallow."
Members of the NYPD are assisting Duncan's family and
Greenburgh police have also offered their help, said Supervisor Paul Feiner.
State Trooper Melissa McMorris, a state police spokeswoman,
identified the wrong-way driver as 20-year-old Efren Moreano of Yonkers. He was
at Westchester Medical Center in a medically induced coma.
The crash occurred just south of Route 100B. McMorris said
Moreano's 2013 Honda Civic was traveling north in the southbound lanes. Duncan
was southbound in a 2011 Honda Pilot.
Feiner said the crash again illustrates the need for more
patrols on that roadway.
"It's not the first fatalities on the Sprain and it
won't be the last," he said. "It's one of the most dangerous roads in
the county."
He called on state police to step up enforcement, possibly
by using funds from a surcharge on traffic tickets.
McMorris said the Hudson Valley Transportation Management
Center was notified of the wrong-way driver at 3:52 a.m. Troopers from the
Hawthorne barracks were immediately dispatched. Five minutes later, she said, a
trooper came upon the crash scene.
Anyone with information is asked to Bureau of Criminal
Investigation at 914-769-2600.
The incident caused heavy delays from Interstate 287, about
3 miles north. All lanes reopened just before 9 a.m., about five hours after
the crash.
At the scene, the Pilot could be seen off the road on the
shoulder facing the wrong direction and the Civic was perpendicular to the
roadway.
Wrong-way drivers have been involved in several fatal
crashes on the region's highways and parkways in recent years:
August 2014: off-duty NYPD officer Richard Christopher, who
was drunk, drove his pickup truck the wrong way on the New York State Thruway
near Suffern and crashed head-on into a Honda CRV driven by James DeVito of
Airmont. Both men were killed.
August 2013: Michelle Cio, 34, of Ossining was killed when
she drove south on the northbound Taconic State Parkway and struck another
vehicle. The other driver suffered leg injuries.
July 2013: Michael Schechel, 69, of Thiells allegedly caused
a five-vehicle crash on the Tappan Zee Bridge, killing Hannah Ayeh-Brachie, 56,
of Hillcrest.
Schechel was charged with criminally negligent homicide.
January 2013: Madeline Lapides, 76, died after her husband,
Alvin S. Lapides, 81, of Monsey, drove nine miles against southbound traffic on
the Thruway in Sloatsburg before striking a car head-on.
March 2012: Mount Vernon Police Officer Reginald Velez Jr.
was killed after he drove the wrong way on Interstate 95 in the Bronx and
crashed head-on into an 18-wheeler.
July 2011: 26-year-old Tanisha Gomez of Queens traveled the
wrong way on I-95 for more than six miles. She drove north in the southbound
lanes and killed a passenger in the vehicle she crashed into in New Rochelle,
Reginald Lee, 29, of East Orange, N.J. She was convicted of vehicular homicide
and sentenced to three to nine years in state prison.
July 2009: Diane Schuler of West Babylon, Long Island, drove
the wrong way onto the Taconic State Parkway in Mount Pleasant and collided
head-on with another vehicle, killing herself and seven others.