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(Editor’s note: Pfeiffer’s work made it to Yahoo without a paywall. Here is a follow on the most heinous police report from the last week. Niagara Falls police found the guy. Allegedly.)
By Rick Pfeiffer
Niagara Gazette
An out-of-town contractor working on the Amazon distribution facility project in the Town of Niagara has been arrested and charged in connection with a hit-and-run crash on Buffalo Avenue on April 19.
Falls police investigators charged Jacob T. Gaccetta, 31, with second-degree assault in the incident that left a Falls man seriously injured. Gaccetta was picked up by police in the 1300 block of Whitney Avenue about 12 hours after witnesses and police said he struck an unidentified man with the Ford F-150 pickup truck he was driving, outside a bar in the 8700 block of Buffalo Avenue.
The pickup was located by police in the 1100 block of 13th Street. The truck had Colorado license plates, but law enforcement sources said those plates were not registered to the vehicle.
Gaccetta’s home address, outside New York state, could not immediately be determined.
He was arraigned on the assault charge and was jailed in lieu of $25,000. He has since posted bail and been released from custody.
Patrol officers said they were dispatched to the bar at 8752 Buffalo Ave. at 12:35 a.m. April 19. When they arrived on scene, the officers said they found a male victim “lying on the ground at the intersection of Cayuga Drive and Buffalo Avenue with multiple individuals surrounding him.”
Multiple witnesses told police that they had seen the crash take place. One told investigators that there was a male driver and male passenger in the Ford F-150 and that both men “were intoxicated and had been kicked out of (the bar).”
Another witness told police that the suspects “were approaching women in an inappropriate manner” and “were cut off from being served alcohol and then ejected from the bar.”
A friend of the victim told police that he had been “engaging” with the suspects inside the bar and outside by the pickup truck. The witness said he saw the driver of the pickup “attempting to strike (the victim) through the open driver’s side window with his hand and arm.”
Police said doctors at ECMC indicated that the victim had suffered serious injuries to his lungs and spleen. The suspect confirmed that he had been “arguing” with the suspects before he was hit by the truck.
He said he was not from Niagara Falls and did not know the suspects. The victim has been reported to be in the intensive care unit at ECMC, in stable condition.
