A New York town official is facing a slew of charges after allegedly shooting a DoorDash delivery driver who was lost and looking for directions in the town of Chester last week, police said.
The DoorDash driver suffered serious, nonfatal injuries, New York State Police said in a statement released Sunday. As of Tuesday, the victim remained hospitalized after undergoing surgery, CNN affiliate WABC reported.
It marks the latest instance of someone in the US being shot after making an apparently innocent mistake, like ringing the wrong doorbell or pulling into the wrong driveway.
According to New York police, the driver had attempted to deliver food to a residence in the Valerie Drive neighborhood in Chester last Friday. Chester is roughly 50 miles north of Manhattan.
The driver, who police didn’t identify, struggled to find the exact location and approached several homes asking for directions before arriving at the residence of John Reilly III, the town’s highway superintendent, police said.
Reilly then told the driver to get off his property before firing multiple rounds at the victim as he attempted to leave in his vehicle, according to police. The driver was shot once in the back, police said, “causing serious physical injuries.”
The driver was provided with the “correct consumer address” in the Dasher app, but he went to the wrong house, DoorDash told CNN in a statement. The delivery was due for roughly 10 p.m. Friday and in “a rural location,” the company said.
“No one should ever fear for their safety just for trying to make deliveries in their neighborhood,” DoorDash said in the statement.
“We’re devastated by this senseless act of violence, and we’re praying for a full and speedy recovery. We’ll continue to work closely with law enforcement as they investigate this tragic incident.”
A relative of the victim told WABC the driver “thought his life was over.” He was so scared that he first stopped at a gas station after the incident, before driving dozens of miles away to his home in Middletown, the relative said.
“Yes, the situation makes us angry, but we’re just very grateful that he’s alive, and we want this guy to get the punishment he deserves because he tried to kill him,” the relative told WABC.
Reilly, a federally licensed firearms dealer, has been charged with assault in the first degree, the criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, and the criminal possession of a firearm, according to police.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 9 in the Town of Chester Court.
CNN has reached out to New York State police and Chester police for further details.
Other similar cases of someone being shot after approaching a home for innocent reasons have resulted in criminal convictions.
Last year, a 66-year-old man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for fatally shooting a woman in a car that mistakenly drove up his driveway in rural New York.
Homeowner Kevin Monahan claimed he was protecting his wife and was concerned about past criminal activity in his neighborhood when he lost his balance on some nails and fired the fatal shot at Kaylin Gillis, 20, from his porch in April 2023.
Gillis was killed just days after a Black teenager in Kansas City was shot twice by a White homeowner after going to the wrong address to pick up his siblings.
The now-deceased shooter Andrew Lester pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree assault in the shooting of then-16-year-old Ralph Yarn.
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