New York City Detective Dies 30 Years After “Catastrophic” Injuries in Shooting

NEW YORK — A New York City Police detective who had been in a coma for three decades after suffering “catastrophic” injuries in a 1990 Brooklyn shooting has died, the police commissioner announced Sunday.

Troy Patterson died Saturday night, NYPD Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced the next day. He passed away at a rehab center in New Jersey, reported the Daily News.

Patterson was off duty, washing his car, when a 15-year-old shot him in the head and, along with two other men, approached him in front of his Bedford-Stuyvesant home and demanded $20. It was January 16, 1990.

Patterson, then 27, never regained consciousness. He had joined the NYPD seven years earlier, working at the 60th Precinct in Coney Island, and was the father of a 5-year-old boy at the time of the shooting.

His son, who goes by the same name, told the Daily News a few years ago that he still felt that his father could hear him, that he heard his voice and felt his presence.

Friends and colleagues have been holding candlelight vigils on the anniversary of the shooting. As recently as last year, attendees reported that he was “still trying to get by,” according to the Daily News.

The 15-year-old gunman and two other suspects, one 20 and one 17, were arrested after the shooting. All served time for various convictions and have since been released, the newspaper reported.

Patterson was posthumously promoted to the rank of detective. His family confirmed his death “with a heavy heart” on Twitter. Sewell also offered his condolences.