Kiber Calderon, armed suspect in Nassau police SUV takedown, ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation, officials say
The suspect who was hit and disarmed by a Nassau County police car in North Bellmore on Tuesday was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation during an arraignment Thursday at Nassau University Medical Center, officials said.
Nassau County prosecutors had asked District Court Judge William Hohauser to order Kiber Calderon to be held on $200,000 bail, according to Nicole Turso, a spokeswoman for Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly. The judge instead ordered Calderon, 31, to be held for a psychiatric evaluation.
Calderon, of Brooklyn, is scheduled to return to court on Monday. The defendant was charged with eight crimes in a felony complaint, including two counts of menacing a police officer and first-degree reckless endangerment.
“The defendant did act with depraved indifference to human life when he recklessly fired the weapon at this location, an intersection filled with passing motorists and pedestrian civilians at nearby retail locations creating a grave risk of death,” the felony complaint said.
Calderon was represented during the arraignment by a Legal Aid attorney, who did not immediately return a request for comment.
Police initially identified the defendant, who also uses the name Hanna Carillo, as a 33-year-old woman. The department later said the defendant identified as a man to them during questioning. Calderon’s half-sister and an employee at the Brooklyn shelter where Calderon lives told Newsday that the suspect is a transgender woman.
The half-sister, who declined to be identified by name, said Calderon has struggled with substance abuse and mental health problems.
Police said they received a 911 call about 2:20 p.m. on Tuesday about a woman who had fired a gun into the air and was waving it at passing vehicles at the intersection of Jerusalem and Bellmore avenues in North Bellmore.
A video of the incident shows the suspect walking backward in the intersection, waving a handgun at several drivers in stopped vehicles before pointing it at the suspect’s own head. The Nassau police SUV struck the suspect, who collapsed on the road. Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said at a news conference on Wednesday that Calderon had pointed the handgun at police.
Ryder and County Executive Bruce Blakeman defended the officer’s decision at Wednesday’s news conference to hit Calderon with the vehicle. Nassau police policy permits officers to use deadly force of any kind when confronted with deadly force, officials said.
Police reform advocates have criticized the officer's action and also criticized Ryder's swift defense before any official determination by Internal Affairs or the department's Deadly Force Review Board.
Ryder said the cop who hit Calderon said the officer feared he would have hit bystanders if he used his firearm. The officer who struck Calderon, who was not named publicly or in the felony complaint, is out on sick leave due to the trauma of the situation.
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