NYPD auto impound with DNA, vehicle evidence is ‘burning down’: officials
The NYPD’s massive Brooklyn auto pound — which stores DNA evidence and vehicles suspected of being used in crimes — was “burning down” as fire engulfed it Tuesday, fire officials said.
Enormous plumes of smoke and flames shot from the Erie Basin Auto Pound on Columbia Street in Red Hook after the blaze erupted at 10:37 a.m. — amounting to an “absolutely’’ a devastating loss, NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said.
“We had DNA, things from past crimes, burglaries, you know, maybe shooting incidents,’’ the top cop told reporters at the scene.
“The evidence goes back a long time — 20, 30 years.’’
Sources said investigators are looking at the possibility that lithium batteries stored at the facility could have been a factor in the fire, although no official cause has been cited.
A source noted that the batteries were disconnected and removed from e-bikes that were being stored at the site and said the blaze did not start in that area.
Sources added that no evidence from active or open cases was being stored at the Brooklyn pound, with most of the items being from cold cases, including clothing from victims and unidentified suspects from decades ago.
Many of the items had already been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and were being kept in more than 1,000 secure barrels similar to 55-gallon shipping drums, sources said.
FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said there was a “large amount of combustible material” in the building — which partly collapsed during the inferno — and that he doubts anything is salvageable.
It could be several days before the blaze is completely extinguished, the fire official added.
“I would estimate that most of the contents are damaged by fire just based on the amount of fire that we know is in there,” Hodgens said.
The facility’s contents included vehicles suspected of being used by criminals, officials said.
Some of the cars are “historic vehicles,” such as those belonging to officers killed in the line of duty, authorities said.
They include the patrol cars of NYPD Officer Eddie Byrne, who was killed sitting in his squad vehicle in 1988, and Officer Miosotis Familia, who was shot execution-style while in a mobile command center in The Bronx in 2017, sources said.
Hundreds of motorcycles and e-bikes that were illegally on city roads were being stored at the property as well, officials said. Batteries were removed from the e-bikes before they were stored there, cops said.
Asked whether the fire was a major loss to the Police Department, Maddrey replied, “Absolutely, of course.
“We store other things there as well, but the main purpose is to store evidence,” he said. “This is one of our property facilities. It was a very serious, damaging fire.
“We won’t really know the magnitude of what was destroyed in there until we have an opportunity to look at the invoice and see what was in there and then see what we can salvage and then we’ll go from there.”
The blaze grew to three alarms less than an hour after it erupted, fire officials said. A total of 33 units with 140 firefighters responded.
Eight people — including three firefighters, three EMS members and two civilians — suffered minor injuries in the blaze, Hodgens said.
About 15 NYPD employees, including officers, were inside the building at the time of the blaze, and all are accounted for, cops said.
A section of the building collapsed as firefighters fought the blaze, Hodgens said.
“It’s a metal building with truss construction, which has a large collapse potential, which is why we backed our members out of the building early in the operation,” he said.
Hodgens estimated that it would take fire crews “a few days” of work at the scene before fully extinguishing the blaze and getting into “the deep-seated areas.”
“We’re shooting water in from the outside from our fire boats,” Hodgens said. “And it’s difficult because … there’s not a lot of openings in this building.
“It’s a sealed-off building. So as we’re able to get holes in the building from the pressure of the water stream, we get water onto the fire. But it’s a difficult operation that takes time to get to the seat of the fire.”
The same facility was damaged during Hurricane Sandy in the fall of 2012, and evidence was ruined, sources said.
In the aftermath of the storm, corrections were supposedly put in place to avoid any future damage, according to sources. It’s unclear whether those precautions were ever enacted.
Rape kits and sexual-assault evidence were not stored at the facility.
The NYPD has another auto pound in Springfield Gardens, Queens.
Additional reporting by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon