The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A Harvey, La. man died and two New Orleans police officers were under investigation Tuesday after a fatal early morning accident involving a police car heading the wrong way in a transit lane on the Crescent City Connection bridge.
Police Spokesman Marlon Defillo, said that Officer Leonard D’Arensbourg pulled his police cruiser onto the transit lane headed in the wrong direction and his vehicle slammed into a car going from the west bank to the east bank, killing its occupant.
The victim was 51 years old. His name was being withheld pending the notification of his family.
D’Arensbourg, who suffered minor lacerations to his face and hands, had two people in the car with him. One was another police officer, Robert Evangelist; the other was a 23-year-old Harahan woman. Evangelist had a broken ankle, elbow and foot. The woman had minor facial cuts.
Defillo said both officers, who had been on the force for about a year and a half, were off duty at the time.
The investigation into the cause of the accident is ongoing, but Defillo said blood-alcohol levels would be examined.
“At this point in the investigation we are still in the midst of trying to determine why the officers were traveling against traffic,” Defillo said.