by Leo Standora, New York Daily News
A grand jury cleared yesterday a plainclothes cop of wrongdoing in the fatal shooting of an alleged car thief on the lower East Side a year ago.
Officer Sean Ryan said he shot Cesar Mercado, 47, once in the head when the career criminal lunged at him from inside a van he was stealing at Forsyth and Delancy Sts. with a “shiny” object in his hands.
The grand jury heard testimony from 25 police, medical and civilian witnesses before deciding there was no evidence to warrant bringing Ryan to trial.
Although Mercado apparently carried no gun, a folded Swiss Army-type knife and a screwdriver were in his pockets when he was brought to Bellevue Hospital, where he died, police said.
It was the first time that Ryan, 29, a five-year NYPD veteran, had fired his weapon in the line of duty.