US News

‘I KILLED & I FEEL BAD’

A narcotics cop says he feels bad about shooting and killing an unarmed motorist in an East Harlem road-rage incident, and wishes it never happened.

“It was a loss of life. I wish it could have been different,” Sean Sawyer, 34, told The Post yesterday.

“Of course I feel bad about it. The guy was a human being.”

Sawyer was suspended without pay Monday after being quizzed for hours in the killing of Jayson Tirado, 25, at First Avenue and 120th Street shortly before 6 a.m. Sunday.

He waited 19 hours before approaching a sergeant in a patrol car a block from his Upper West Side home and admitting he shot the driver, claiming he thought Tirado was pulling a gun.

The long wait meant there could be no Breathalyzer test.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said the case will be presented to a grand jury.

Sawyer also faces NYPD disciplinary procedures for leaving the scene of the shooting and failing to identify himself as a cop, sources said.

Sawyer’s brother, Christopher, 36, who lives in his West 102nd Street building, apologized to Tirado’s family.

“It’s the first time he’s ever shot somebody. He’s nervous and scared,” the brother said. “We’d like to apologize deeply for what happened. We wish [Tirado’s] family the best and we’re praying for them.”

Christopher said his brother has two toddlers and grew up in the neighborhood. The cop was described as a born-again Christian who started a Bible study group with his wife, Monique.

At Tirado’s apartment in the Jacob Riis Houses in the East Village, his grieving mother, Irene, 54, lashed out at the cop.

“Only a drunk person would have done what this officer did – being aggravated by a kid like that,” the distraught mom said, noting that she lost another son, Luis, to cancer recently.

“I don’t want to know him. I can’t forgive him. I don’t want him to be a police officer ever again,” she wailed.

“I blame this officer, I blame [Police Commissioner Ray] Kelly – all of them,” she said.

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network plans to help the family – Tirado leaves a 5-year-old daughter, Jaylene.

Sawyer, a cop for four years who works out of Queens, got off work at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Sources said he told friends he went home, had dinner and then went to a coffee shop to study for the sergeant’s exam.

After the shooting, he said he went home and spent all day with his family. He learned that Tirado had been killed only when he saw the 11 p.m. news.

NYPD officials said Tirado and Sawyer began exchanging words after both drivers were forced to exit the southbound FDR at 116th Street because of a motorcycle accident. At 117th Street and First Avenue, Tirado swerved his Honda Civic in front of Sawyer’s Nissan Xterra and slammed on the brakes, the officials said.

Tirado then reached into the back seat as if to pull out a gun, saying, “I have a new Ruger for you,” and then pointed his forefinger and thumb at the cop, the officials said.

Without getting out of his car, Sawyer allegedly fired three times at the back of Tirado’s car, striking him under the right arm.

Tirado drove three blocks north to 120th Street, where he collapsed.

Additional reporting by Elaine Chan

douglas.montero@nypost.com