An NYPD veteran left comatose by a Sunday fire died early Wednesday. Officer Dennis Guerra, a married father of four, was pronounced dead at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx at 6:50 a.m. He never regained consciousness after the fire.
“We’ve lost a good man (Wednesday) morning,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had visited with Guerra one day earlier. “A very brave police officer ... who did something that most of us wouldn’t know how to do: He went selflessly toward the flames.”
Guerra, 38, became the NYPD’s first in the line of duty death since the Dec. 12, 2011, shooting of Officer Peter Figoski.
Guerra and fellow housing cop Rosa Rodriguez were overcome by smoke and pulled unconscious from a NYCHA building in Brooklyn. Rodriguez, 36, on the job four years, remained in critical condition Wednesday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell.
On Monday, 16-year-old Marcell Dockery was charged with two counts of assault, arson and reckless endangerment. Authorities say he set the blaze by torching a mattress in a hallway of his building. Sources told the New York Daily News that those charges are now expected to be upgraded to include felony murder.
