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Quogue Village Police Chief Christopher Isola spoke to reporters at a press conference following the fatal crash in July.
Fewer than four seconds before the head-on crash that killed five people in Quogue this summer, Justin Mendez’s Nissan Maxima was clocked at 106 mph, according to the vehicle’s “black box.” At the time of the collision, it was going approximately 86 mph, with no indication of braking, information retrieved from the Nissan’s data recorder by the New York State Police Collision Reconstruction Unit revealed.
With the multi-agency investigation into the accident still underway, on October 8 Quogue Village Police released additional details of the probe including testimony from a witness who saw the speeding vehicle.
The fatal wreck took place on the night of July 24, when the Nissan slammed head-on into a Prius operated by Uber driver Farhan Zahid, 32, of Bay Shore. Mendez, 22, of Brookhaven and Zahid were both killed, as were three of the four passengers in the Uber — brothers James Patrick Farrell Jr., 25, and Michael O’Brien Farrell, 20, of Manhasset, and Ryan Kiess, 25, also from Manhasset. A fourth passenger, 24-year-old Brianna Maglio, of Garden City, survived and was seriously injured.
According to the black box data, the Prius was traveling on Montauk Highway at a speed of approximately 27 mph with a top speed of approximately 38 mph about 4 seconds prior to impact. Data shows the Prius was braking.
Police also forwarded quotes from a witness statement this week. The witness passed two cars — the Nissan and a Quogue Village Police car — as the witness was headed east and they were headed west, about a quarter of a mile away from the crash site.
“I saw a red car near the old VFW in Quogue on Montauk Highway. I did not realize until after my headlights had illuminated the vehicle that the red car had no lights on and was completely blacked out. When this vehicle passed me, it appeared as the vehicle was traveling at over 100 mph, which sounded like a race car, taking my breath away. Next, I saw a police car with the emergency lights on around 100 yards or 10-15 seconds behind the red car, with the police car not making any headway of closing the distance between them.”
Although the families of Michael and James Farrell Jr. and Ryan Kiess pointed toward a dangerous curve on Montauk Highway near its intersection with Quogue Street East as the culprit in the fatal accident, police all along have said speed was the cause. A legal action filed by James Farrell Sr. in August targeted Suffolk County, which owns the road where the accident occurred, claiming negligence and seeking $40 million in wrongful death damages.
A second notice of claim, filed by Farrell, foreshadows a lawsuit looming against the Village of Quogue and its police department, listing its policies related to police pursuits among articulated shortcomings. Ryan’s father, Kurt Kiess, raised questions about whether the pursuit by the officer pushed Mendez to the dangerous speed.
When there’s a death that could have been caused by an act or omission of a police officer, protocol requires bringing in the New York State attorney general’s office. “That office reviewed this incident and indicated that there was no cause to pursue action against the police officer,” the release from Quogue Police Thursday morning stated.
Further, the notice of claim said the village failed to properly train its officers in police pursuit, and created unsafe conditions.
“While the Quogue Village Police Department seems eager to release to the public data highlighting the reckless conduct of the driver of the Nissan Maxima, we are greatly troubled by the lack of transparency with regard to the Quogue Police’s own conduct in this tragedy,” Kiess wrote in response to an email query. “Notwithstanding the alleged findings of the New York State Attorney General, it seems apparent that the Nissan driver was pushed to such reckless conduct in an attempt to evade the pursuit by the Quogue Police, a pursuit that, at this point, seems unjustified and reckless in itself.
“We were previously advised by the Quogue Police that the pursuing officer first identified the Nissan 3/4 of a mile away from the crash site traveling at a rate of 55 mph in a 30 mph zone, a routine traffic violation that would have warranted an attempted stop by the police but not a high speed pursuit causing the driver to double his speed toward a dangerous, curved section of Montauk Highway. Many questions remain unanswered by the Quogue Police, I would like to know the maximum speed of the police car and the length of the pursuit. What is the QPD policy on pursuits and what training did the officer have in this area?” he concluded.
Asked this week about the pursuit training Village Police Chief Christopher Isola said, “We are a fully accredited New York State agency since 2001 and were reaccredited in 2019.”
Not only was the police chase policy analyzed as part of the extensive accreditation process, it was updated in 2019, then again in July 2021, just two weeks before the accident, the chief informed.
“This was part of my own review of the department’s policies upon taking over command of the department in 2018. The subsequent updates were also in response to updates on best practices and supervisors review of police chases and after action requirements,” he said.
Marijuana was found in Mendez’s car, but the chief pointed out that because the case is not criminal, toxicology reports on the driver are protected under federal patient privacy laws.
Kiess said the police promised to meet with the families of the victims more than six weeks ago and canceled “for various irrelevant reasons.”
The chief said the failure to obtain a toxicology report was one of them. Investigators wanted to share the information they had, to give a complete report, and decided to hold off meeting. The meeting was canceled the day before the lawsuits were filed, the chief underscored. “It was not related at all,” he said.
“We await the release of the full Collision Reconstruction Report by the New York State Police as well as the dashcam footage and radio communications of the Quogue Police Department,” Kiess wrote.
The chief said the collision report is going to take “much longer.”
Robert Sullivan of the law firm Sullivan Papain Block McGrath Coffinas & Cannavo P.C, which filed the notices of claim, said neither he nor his client, James Farrell Sr., wish to comment on the police’s assertions.
