Nassau re-evaluates after Breitkopf killing

Nassau County police leaders say the killing of Officer Geoffrey J. Breitkopf has prompted them to take tighter control of crime scenes, make it easier for cops to identify nonuniformed colleagues and improve communication with other agencies.

The changes, detailed Tuesday, were made in the months after the March 2011 shooting in Massapequa Park.

Acting Nassau Police Commissioner Thomas Dale, who took the department's reins last month, also will "continue to adjust department policy and training . . . to create a safer environment for all law enforcement officers to operate in," said a police spokesman, Deputy Insp. Kenneth Lack.

MTA police Officer Glenn Gentile shot Breitkopf, a member of Nassau's plainclothes Bureau of Special Operations, when he arrived outside a home where other officers had just killed a knife-wielding man.

Breitkopf carried an assault rifle, did not identify himself as an officer, and wasn't wearing visible police identification over his black hooded sweatshirt, according to witnesses cited in a report released Tuesday by Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice.

Lack said that as of last August, all plainclothes officers responding to 911 dispatch scenes are required to wear an identifying police vest or jacket.

Until then, it was left up to an officer's discretion. "Now, it's mandated," Lack said.

At the same time, the department began limiting access to the area closest to crime scenes to officers and detectives directly involved in handling the initial investigation, Lack said.

In addition, Nassau police began requiring in recent months that its dispatchers radio an alert when they become aware that officers from other agencies are responding to incidents, and to contact those agencies.

Experts in police procedure said such steps are positive, though some cautioned that the danger of friendly fire incidents can never be totally eliminated.

Andrew Scott, a retired Boca Raton, Fla., police chief who does law-enforcement consulting, said strict policies must be in place for plainclothes officers arriving at crime scenes with multiple agencies present, and the lessons must be reinforced.

"If you're in plainclothes and you're not identifying yourself, you stand the risk of being misidentified as a perpetrator," Scott said.

But Wayne Fisher of the Police Institute at the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, said there's always risk in a chaotic scene like the one in Massapequa Park, where civilians -- including a retired NYPD sergeant -- mixed with personnel from the Nassau police and the MTA.

"In police work there's this 'training trap,' " he said. "You kind of fool yourself into believing that you really can train and prepare for every possible situation -- and what you find out is that you can't."