LONG ISLAND CITY — A state prison guard fatally shot herself after opening fire on her ex-boyfriend while chasing him down the street outside the Queens prison where they worked Tuesday morning, sources said.
The 47-year-old uniformed guard, whose name wasn’t immediately released, was feuding with her ex before chasing him as he ran toward his car outside the Queensboro Correction at 47-07 Van Dam St. about 6:30 a.m., sources said.
Video of the chase obtained by DNAinfo New York shows the man sprinting down 31st Place, running down the middle of the road while looking back at his ex. She follows at close range.
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The gunfire missed her 44-year-old ex, who was out of uniform and wearing a gray hoodie and Yankees cap, instead hitting his parked car and and another passing car, witnesses and sources said.
They ex-boyfriend doubled back and ran into the prison for safety as she then turned the gun on herself, hitting herself in the torso, sources said. She was pronounced dead at Elmhurst Hospital, police said.
Rafael Macias, 40, who was driving his friends near the scene of the shooting, said one of the officer’s bullets struck his passenger’s side door.
(DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp)
“I saw a female Corrections officer shooting at a guy. I was making a left turn and the bullet hit the passengers’ side door. I heard six shots in total,” Macias said. “She was flying down the block.”
A passenger in Macias’ car said he could feel the bullet hit his door.
“I had my arm on the door when the bullet hit it. I felt the vibration in my arm,” said passenger Darison Abreu, 27, who said he got a good look at the guard as she fired.
“She wasn’t saying anything. She had a determined look on her face,” Abreu said, adding the guard was close on her ex-boyfriend’s heels.
“They weren’t too far apart, maybe 30 feet. He was running straight.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how many shots the guard fired, but Abreu estimated, “she emptied out that clip.”
The guard disappeared from view, witnesses said, emptying several rounds into a car belonging to her ex-boyfriend, sources said.
Witnesses then heard a couple more shots and a man shouting out, “The lady shot herself! Call an ambulance!”
“I went up to her on the ground. She was on her back, face up. Her eyes were a little more than half open. She wasn’t saying nothing. She was breathing, though. I was trying to see where exactly she was shot, but the other Corrections officers were pushing me back,” Abreu said.
Prison officials said they were helping the NYPD with its investigation and that the facility remained secure.
“At no time was security to the facility breached. As a precaution, the facility is operating on a modified schedule,” said Corrections spokesman Thomas Mailey.
Officials declined to discuss the details of the incident or what a modified schedule means.
