VICTIM'S GIRLFRIEND SAYS SHOOTING WASN'T AN ACCIDENT

Says Suffolk Officer Wasn't Pushed When Gun Went Off

The 17-year-old girlfriend of a man who police say was accidentally shot
and killed by Suffolk officers during a drug raid in Bellport said
yesterday that the officer whose gun discharged was not pushed by another
officer from behind, as police have maintained.

Lydia Sierra of Patchogue said she was sitting in the driver's seat of her
car parked directly outside the Bellport house on Doane Avenue at 10:30
Friday night.

Jose Colon, of Bellport, whom she had been dating for less than three
months, had gone into the house, telling her he had to repay a $20 debt but
refusing to explain why.

Sierra, a junior at Patchogue-Medford High School, said she had an
unobstructed view when police arrived.

"While he [Colon] was inside, that's when the trucks pulled up," Sierra
said. "They parked right in the driveway."

Patrol cars also arrived, and a helicopter swooped in overhead, flooding
the lawn with a spotlight, she said.

Police officials have said the shooting occurred when four Emergency
Services officers made an initial charge toward the front door. An officer
carrying a battering ram tripped over a tree root in front of the house,
police have said. That officer fell forward into lead officer Tony
Gonzalez, who brushed the trigger of his submachine gun and accidentally
released three rounds, one hitting Colon in the head.

Chief of Department Philip Robilotto said after the incident, "It was a
tragedy. It was an accident," and offered public condolences to the family.
Yesterday, he stood by the police account of what happened.

But Sierra said the officers were not moving when Colon emerged from the
house. "I didn't see no one trip," Sierra said. "Everyone was still."

Sierra said the officers already had fanned out across the lawn, rushed
toward the door and taken positions, some as close as five feet from the
front steps when the men came out.

"They were planted," she said. "They were not moving."

Sierra said she watched a man whom police identified as Aaron Hatcher come
out first. "He got down on the ground really quick," she said.

Hatcher later was arrested and charged with marijuana and weapons possession.

Colon was the second person out of the house.

"I guess he didn't know what was coming because he was just walking out"
and didn't seem to be rushing, Sierra said.

With the heavy womping sound of the helicopter, Sierra said she couldn't
hear anything that police might have said to either man.

Police have maintained they yelled at Hatcher and Colon to get down on the
ground. Hatcher complied, Colon did not. Gonzalez was pushed from behind,
police have said, after he stopped short as the two men came out.

Sierra said she heard none of this. All she heard were the shots.

"He just hugged himself and went down," she said of Colon. "He fell to the
bottom of the steps." He was pronounced dead that evening.

It was only after police stepped over Colon, entered the house and pulled
men outside in handcuffs, that anyone seemed to realize she was in the car,
Sierra said. She was pulled through the window by an officer, handcuffed,
and forced to lie facedown on the ground. In the Fifth Precinct, she told
detectives what she saw and asked about her boyfriend.

But, she said, she already knew the answer. Facedown on the lawn, she could
see Colon from the corner of her eye. He still seemed to be hugging
himself, she said, curled up on the ground. But by this time, she said, she
was sure he was dead.