Howard Safir, Ex-NYC Police Commissioner, Hits Pregnant Woman, Joanne Valarezo, and Drove Off

Howard Safir, ex-NYC police commissioner, hits pregnant woman, Joanne Valarezo, and drove off.

Howard Safir, 67,ex-New York City police commissioner during Rudy Giuliani's tenure as mayor, reportedly backed his SUV into Joanne M. Valarezo, a pregnant woman on Manhattan's Upper East Side Friday afternoon and then he drove off, police said. Ms. Valarezo, 30, was reportedly not knocked down and was not seriously injured, according to the NY Times, and she was able to write down the license plate of Mr. Safir's black 2009 Cadillac Escalade.

Detectives from the 19th Precinct tracked Mr. Safir down, questioned him and “determined there is no criminality,” said a law enforcement official. The detectives determined that Mr. Safir was unaware that he had struck the woman before driving away, another law enforcement official said. But the woman’s account raised questions about that.

“I was crossing the street in between cars and he hit reverse, and his female passenger screamed, ‘Are you not looking, there’s someone there,’ and as he was reversing, he hit me on my shoulder and my knee and the side of my stomach,” she said.

Then he started to drive away, she said. “I confronted him and I said, ‘I’m pregnant. Did you not see?’ And he just disregarded that and kept going,” she said. She said if the passenger had not screamed, causing her to turn, she would been hurt more seriously. Ms. Valarezo said her unborn baby, a boy, “is fine now, thank God. Everything looks good with my child.” Source: NY Times

Wow, how could he hit a pregnant woman and just drive off? Is the NYPD covering up for Mr. Safir when they claim he didn't know he hit the woman?