NYPD: Suspect pushed officer to death

A New York City police officer was killed Sunday when a routine call for assistance in a domestic dispute took a violent turn.

NYPD Officer Alain Schaberger, 42, died when a suspect he was arresting in Brooklyn pushed him over a railing. The officer fell 9 feet into a concrete stairwell below leading to the basement, breaking his neck, police said.

Schaberger, of Westchester, was pronounced dead at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said at a news conference. He was the first New York City police officer to be killed in the line of duty since 2009.

Schaberger had responded to a 911 call of a domestic dispute at Bergen Street in Brooklyn, where he and other officers found a 48-year-old woman who told them that the suspect, George Villanueva, had fled.

Officers had previously responded to more than a dozen domestic incident reports at that location and the victim had an order of protection from court against Villanueva, said a police spokesman. Police had last responded to the address on Feb. 9, the spokesman said. A news release said the suspect was "known" to the officer.

According to Kelly, the woman said in her 911 call: "He said he's going to kill me."

Villanueva was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated murder of a police officer, criminal contempt of court in the first-degree and third-degree assault.

He had a record of 28 prior arrests, police said, mostly on robbery and burglary charges. He had been released from prison in 2005, said Kelly.

Sunday, police found Villanueva, 42, on St. Marks Place and as they approached him, he put up a struggle, officials said. While resisting being handcuffed, Villanueva pushed Schaberger, police said.

The 10-year veteran of the force landed on his head, with his feet straight up in the air, Kelly told reporters, his neck broken.

New York City police respond to about 700 domestic violence calls a day.

At Fourth Avenue and St. Marks Place, near where the officer was fatally injured, Villanueva's uncle Ely Figueroa, 62, of Prospect Heights, said Villanueva was at his home Saturday night to watch a boxing match on TV.

"He was calm," Figueroa said. "We had a couple of beers, a couple of shots and watched the fight."

Figueroa said Villanueva "wanted to straighten up" and had been having a hard time after his girlfriend had called the police on him a few weeks ago.

"I could never say he was going to hurt anybody," Figueroa said.

The gathering at his home to watch boxing included three cases of beer and rum. Figueroa said his nephew had six or seven beers before leaving about 1:30 a.m. "He is not a violent man," he said.

Colleagues of Schaberger were stunned and saddened by his death.

"The young guys here, they're taking it bad," said Officer David Kozlow, 55. "It's always hard that first time that one of your co-workers die in the line of duty.

"It was one of those things where they went to a domestic violence and it went bad," Kozlow said.

"These things happen," he said. "You go out on these calls and you hope that they don't go sour."

With Dina Davis