Hit and run cop on the mend

A week after he was struck and dragged by a hit-and-run driver during a traffic stop, a Sergeant at the 113th Precinct in Jamaica remains in stable condition at Jamaica Hospital.
As of Tuesday, January 23, Sergeant John Pagnotta was still recovering from multiply injuries - a broken pelvis, three broken ribs, a fractured backbone and a dislocated shoulder. His release date has not yet been scheduled, hospital officials said.
“This case underscores yet again the dangers faced by New York City police officers,” said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.
Meanwhile, Walter Hurdle, the man charged with mowing Pagnotta down, now faces charges of six different counts of assault and reckless endangerment, as well as drug possession. If convicted, the Valley Stream man faces up to 25 years behind bars.
According to charges filed in Queens Criminal Court, three police officers - including Pagnotta - pulled over Hurdle’s black Yukon Denali on Thursday, January 18 at the corner of 122nd Avenue and Sutphin Boulevard in South Jamaica, a known drug-dealing spot.
Police told the DA that they spotted a glassine envelope - frequently used to hold drugs - inside Hurdle’s vehicle and another object, which police later recovered and believe, was a marijuana cigarette. When the cops asked Hurdle to show his driver’s license, he could not come up with it.
Hurdle stepped on the gas, hitting and dragging Pagnotta somewhere between 15 and 30 feet. Once Pagnotta broke free from the bottom of the car, he tumbled another 10 to 15 feet into oncoming traffic on Sutphin Boulevard.
Pagnotta just missed being hit by another car during the melee.
That evening police launched a large-scale hunt for the 50-year-old Hurdle and his SUV, finding the auto a few blocks from the scene.
The next day, Hurdle surrendered to police at the 113th Precinct, and at his arraignment on Monday, January 22, he was held on $500,000 bail.