911 caller feels 'awful' about shootings

When a man wearing a white mask and brandishing a knife jumped on her car hood as she was backing out of her driveway, Theresa Kelly, 71, called 911.

The call set in motion a chain of events Saturday night that minutes later ended with two dead, including a Nassau police officer. Sunday, Kelly said, she wishes she had never made the call.

"I feel awful that I called 911," said Kelly. "I feel very bad because two people lost their lives, and I don't think it should have happened that way."

Kelly, of Massapequa Park, said after the suspect jumped on her car, she screamed and heard him laugh before he walked away, and she called police.

"He got a good laugh out of scaring me," she said. "I thought he wanted to get into my car."

Kelly added: "I was petrified. He left, he walked down the street with a knife in his hand like nothing was happening."

She followed the man, Anthony DiGeronimo, 21, to a nearby house on Fourth Avenue and watched a police officer with a gun go into a house.

She said she heard three shots inside and heard a man shout to police, "Please don't shoot my son! Please don't shoot my son!"

"A lot of commotion was going on," she said. "I didn't know who was shot. . . . I feel awful."