A pellet gun like the kind used by McGoey. (
)
(
)
A retired Nassau County cop fired the shot that killed an off-duty ATF agent who was trying to stop a pill-popping ex-con from robbing a Long Island pharmacy, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.
“I can’t believe I shot one of our own!” the former lieutenant, Chris Garaghty, 54, shouted in the hospital where he was treated for trauma, one source said.
Garaghty apparently thought the federal agent, John Capano, 51, was an accomplice of James McGoey, who had just robbed Charlie’s Family Pharmacy in Seaford with a realistic-looking pellet gun, the sources said.
He opened fire when a bullet whizzed past him as he and off-duty NYPD cop Joseph Abria ran to the scene from a nearby deli, Abria told investigators, according to sources. Garaghty’s shot struck Capano in the side and hit his aorta.
“The retired Nassau lieutenant’s fire apparently killed him,” another source said. “From the beginning of the investigation, the assumption has been that [Garaghty] thought he was a second bad guy.”
Capano, a married father of two teens from Massapequa, was in the drugstore picking up prescriptions for himself and his cancer-stricken dad, James, 82, when McGoey, 43, announced the stickup.
The tough 23-year ATF veteran at first raised his hands in the air along with other customers as a clerk handed over cash and hundreds of doses of the painkiller oxymorphone.
As McGoey bolted for the front door, Capano pulled his service weapon and followed him before squeezing off a single round that struck the perp in the hip or upper leg.
Witnesses ran two doors down to the Seaford Deli, owned by Garaghty’s family, to report the robbery.
Garaghty and Abria, 29, who was having lunch, ran to the pharmacy with guns drawn.
Abria told cops a shot was fired toward them as Capano and McGoey struggled over the ATF agent’s gun.
With only seconds to react, Garaghty fired back, believing the two men fighting were accomplices. He had no idea a law-enforcement officer was present, Abria told cops.
Moments later, Abria shot McGoey after he stood and pointed a gun.
But witnesses told cops the initial encounter was at much closer range — with Capano desperately yelling to Garaghty, “I’m a good guy! I’m a good guy!”
In that account, no one identified himself as law enforcement, said a source, and Abria shot McGoey as the perp reached for a gun that had fallen on the ground, the sources said.
McGoey and Capano — an explosives expert who had trained US and allied troops in Iraq and Afghanistan — died at the scene.
Capano’s wake will be held tomorrow and Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. at the Charles G. Schmitt Funeral Home in Seaford. A funeral Mass is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at St. William the Abbot Church in Seaford.