A road rage incident on the Long Island Expressway turned near-fatal in September 2023, when a Bronx man fired his gun at an off-duty NYPD detective. As reported by the Queens District Attorney's Office after a thorough jury deliberation, the shooter, Alexis Morillo, was found guilty of attempted assault and other related crimes. The episode unfolded late at night when Morillo, engaged in a high-speed disagreement with the detective, decided to escalate the encounter with the discharge of his weapon.
The trial brought to light the series of events that led to the aggressive act. According to statements from the Queens DA's Office, the incident began when the detective overtook Morillo's white Mercedes-Benz SUV. In retaliation, Morillo pulled his car alongside the detective’s vehicle and fired a shot, which struck the detective's car. Morillo then attempted to flee the scene, evading the detective for a brief time, before his vehicle was later found abandoned in Astoria. As per the prosecutors, Morillo's subsequent use of an Uber to return to the Bronx further implicated him in the attempt to flee the crime scene.
Morillo, 41, stood trial for charges including attempted assault in the first degree and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. The jury, after three hours of deliberation, acquitted him of attempted murder but convicted him of the aforementioned charges, as well as reckless driving and unlawfully fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle in third degree. "Gun violence will not be tolerated anywhere in Queens, not on our community streets and not on our shared roadways," Katz emphasized in a statement. Morillo's decision to engage in such behaviors now renders him liable for a possible maximum of 15 years behind bars, as per the Queens DA's Office.
Sentencing for Morillo was scheduled by Supreme Court Justice David Kirschner for September 8, as a culmination of a trial process that began with openings on June 24. Assistant District Attorney Hugh McCann presented the case, noting the danger posed not only to the detective but to the public at large. "The defendant shot at a fellow motorist, who happened to be an off-duty NYPD detective, in a fit of road rage that could have very easily ended in tragedy," Katz said in the aftermath of the verdict, as reported by the Queens DA's Office.
