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New York|Video Shows Fiery Fatal Crash After Police Chase
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/nyregion/francisco-guzman-police-chase.html
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Francisco Guzman Parra, 31, died after crashing a stolen Honda in Upper Manhattan. Two officers chasing him drove away after the car caught fire, according to video surveillance footage.
Video
June 5, 2025, 8:47 p.m. ET
It was still dark when the driver of a stolen Honda CRV sped down a ramp off the Henry Hudson Parkway and careened out of control into a building in Upper Manhattan.
Flames immediately erupted from the rear of the vehicle, according to video surveillance footage released by a lawyer for the driver’s family on Thursday. About 10 seconds later, at 4:40 a.m. on April 2, the police car that had been chasing the S.U.V. drove down the same ramp. The flames had diminished but still appeared to be flickering when the cruiser, its siren lights off, reached the bottom of the ramp.
The officer driving the cruiser slowed down, but instead of turning toward the Honda he turned left on Dyckman Street in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan and left the wreckage behind. The driver, Francisco A. Guzman Parra, 31, died from blunt impact injuries to the head and torso and “thermal injuries,” according to the medical examiner’s office.
The video, which the family obtained from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, gave the first visual account of a crash that is now being investigated by the Manhattan district attorney’s office and led to the suspension of the two officers in the cruiser. Mr. Guzman Parra’s family said the video confirmed what they had feared for months: that the police left him to die.
“They could have helped get him out,” said Carmen Colon, his stepmother, who, along with Mr. Guzman Parra’s sisters, spoke with reporters after watching the video at their lawyer’s office in Lower Manhattan.
“I think that when we see that video we’re seeing a crime being committed,” she said.
About 16 minutes after the crash, firefighters and officers from the 34th Precinct, which covers Inwood, received a 9-1-1 call about a car on fire. When they arrived, they found the Honda fully engulfed in flames.
