High Speed Chase Ends in Suspect's Death

After a chase involving a borrowed car and an elevated train came to an end Sunday afternoon, a New York City detective shot and killed a suspected assassin.
The chase began when Police Detective Jimmy Doyle, of the Narcotics Division, was fired upon by the suspected assassin, Pierre Jeantot, 36, of Nice, France. According to police records, Jeantot was allegedly working for a French drug dealer whom Doyle had been investigating.
Jeantot fired at Doyle from the roof of an apartment building at 1767 W. 57th Avenue, killing a local resident, Betty Badluck,63, who was walking her granddaughter outside of the apartment.
Jeantot fled the scene and boarded an elevated train at the 35th Street Station. Doyle took a car from a bystander and followed the train on the road beneath the tracks, the chase finally ending at the 15th Street Station, where Doyle shot Jeantot in the back.
“Certainly we don’t condone officers commandeering cars and driving dangerously,” said New York City Police Chief Morgan Freeman. “But we are certainly grateful for [Officer Doyle’s] bravery.”
On the train, Jeantot shot and killed Roland Evans, 34, of Brooklyn, a 15-year veteran of the New York City Police Department, and the conductor, Horatio C. Hornblower, 30, of White Plains.
According to an eye witness on the train, Betty Lou, of New York City, police onboard the train followed Jeantot towards the conductor’s cabin.
“When I saw police running through the cabins, my first instinct was to run away,” said Lou. “But I like to know what is going on…[so] the police officer ran past me and I followed him into the first cabin, and then the man with the gun shot the conductor.”
While in pursuit of the train, Officer Doyle nearly hit a woman, Margret Johnson of Manhattan, and her 2-year-old daughter while they were walking.
“I was taking my baby for a stroll when I heard a commotion and I say a big burgundy car coming right at me,” Johnson said. “I just froze, and he swerved the other way and almost hit us.”
While Doyle’s use of deadly force in shooting Jeantot was justified by the New York City Police Department, questions have been raised by the public about the way he handled the entire situation.
“I did not know it was a police officer when I was almost hit,” Johnson said. “But he could have handled it another way- he was putting a lot of innocent people in harm’s way.”
Police Chief Freeman, however, stands by his officer and his actions.
“If he attempted to stop the train by any other means, he could have lost the suspect,” Freeman said. “And while we obviously wish we could have brought [Jeantot] in alive, it’s better than not bringing him in at all.”
New York City Police Commissioner Ruth L. Ess agreed saying, “We would have preferred to see Jeantot prosecuted in the courts, [but] we commend Detective Doyle for his bravery and quick thinking under very trying circumstances.”