State AG James to investigate police-involved crash that led to Anthony Stinson's death

ALBANY — State Attorney General Letitia James said Thursday she will investigate the actions of police in connection with the death of 13-year-old Anthony Stinson, who died days after he was struck by a Suffolk County police vehicle in Shirley.

The attorney general's office declined to elaborate on the statement.

Under a 2021 state law, the Office of Special Investigations handles cases of deaths involving police, peace officers and corrections officers. The office investigates the cause and can present evidence of any crime to a grand jury, which can hand down indictments. The office said it investigates more than 200 cases a year.

The eighth-grade student and athlete at William Paca Middle School was hit about 7:50 p.m. Saturday by a Suffolk police vehicle as he rode a bicycle west across William Floyd Parkway at the Adobe Drive intersection, authorities said. Police said the officer was driving a patrol vehicle southbound with its lights and sirens activated and with a green traffic light. Police said the officer was responding to a call for an elderly woman in distress in Shirley, police said.

Suffolk police are also investigating the tragedy. Police investigators said they want to find out how fast the cruiser was traveling. The officer remains on active duty, according to police.

On Wednesday, physicians removed Anthony’s ventilator. His family decided to donate his organs through the LiveOnNY nonprofit group that matches donors with the federal organ transplant list. Physicians had declared the boy brain dead on Monday from a severe head injury.

More than half of the cases the state Office of Special Investigations handles annually are about deaths in jails and prisons, according to the office’s annual report in October. The office prosecuted four indictments in 2022, the report stated. One of the indictments accused a state trooper of causing the death of an 11-year-old girl in a high-speed chase in 2020 on the Thruway in Ulster County. The trooper, Christopher Baldner, was accused of twice ramming his vehicle into a car in which the girl was a passenger after an initial stop for speeding. In February a murder charge was dropped, but the now-retired trooper still faces a manslaughter charge, according to The Daily Freeman in Kingston.

By Michael Gormley

michael.gormley@newsday.com@GormleyAlbany

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.