White Officer Convicted in N.Y. Shooting

A white police officer was convicted Tuesday of second-degree assault for shooting a black undercover transit officer four times in the back during a chaotic chase inside a subway station.

Peter Del-Debbio, 33, was acquitted of first-degree assault in the 1994 shooting of Desmond Robinson. Del-Debbio stared straight ahead as the verdicts were read. Robinson was not in the courtroom.

A conviction on the more serious charge would have required Del-Debbio to go to prison. State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried, who set sentencing for May 22, could require only probation for second-degree assault.

Some members of the Guardians, a black police organization, have said that Del-Debbio fired more quickly than he normally would have because Robinson is black. But neither side introduced the issue at the trial.

“I’m satisfied that the jury has rejected defense attempts to attack my honesty, competence and reputation,” Robinson said in a statement. “The jury . . . found Officer Del-Debbio clearly responsible.”

Defense attorney James Lysaght promised to appeal, calling the verdict a “travesty.”

Del-Debbio, a six-year veteran, fired on the armed Robinson, an eight-year veteran, as the undercover officer chased two armed teenagers inside the subway station.

The scene was pandemonium: One of the youths had dropped a shotgun that went off, and passengers were running, screaming, hiding under subway seats and jumping onto the tracks.

Del-Debbio, who was off-duty and heading home, said he picked up the shotgun and identified himself to passengers as a police officer. Then, he said, he saw Robinson running toward him, gun in hand.

Del-Debbio testified that Robinson displayed nothing identifying him as an officer. He said he emptied his five-shot revolver at Robinson because he feared that he would be killed himself.

Robinson, 32, testified that he was lying face-down, his gun two feet away, when he took the last two bullets. He was hospitalized about a month with injuries to the kidney, lung, liver, spleen, heart and small intestine.

Del-Debbio, who had a desk job at police headquarters, has been working without his gun and badge since the shooting. With the verdict, he will be fired, said Police Commissioner William Bratton.

The two teenagers who started the chaos were arrested in the subway station.