By Curtis Brodner
(NEW YORK) Tristin Goods, a 39-year-old Black man from Queens, is suing the state after an I-87 state trooper allegedly maced his wife and two children and then rammed his car, killing his 11-year-old daughter in the process, the New York Daily News reported.
This interview with the Daily News is the first public account of the incident that Goods has given. “What did I do? What threat did I pose?” asked the traumatized father.
Goods was traveling with his wife, April, and his daughters, 11-year-old Monica and 12-year-old Tristina. The two sisters both lived part-time with their mother in Brooklyn.
The family was driving to visit relatives upstate on Dec. 22, when Trooper Christopher Baldner pulled Goods over for speeding in the town of Ulster.
The state trooper screamed at him, asking if there were guns or drugs in the car, according to Goods.
Goods asked for a supervisor and Baldner went to his cruiser. When he returned, the officer flooded the car with pepper spray, which, with only one window open, immediately filled the cabin with stinging, toxic aerosol.
Baldner never warned he was going to use pepper spray, placed Goods under arrest or asked him to step out of the car, according to Goods’ account.
Goods, panicked and fearing for his family’s safety, sped off.
“I didn’t know what he was going to do next,” Goods told the Daily News. “I was like, ‘Holy s--t. This guy is going to kill me now.’”
Police records show Baldner gave chase to the family’s SUV and rammed the vehicle twice.
The second hit caused the car to hit a guardrail and roll over, ejecting Monica from the vehicle.
She died at the scene.
Goods tried to leave the car to find his daughter, but Baldner aimed his gun at the scared father and again demanded to know if there were drugs or weapons in the car.
The surviving family members were detained, and Goods’ daughter Tristina was interrogated for four hours without a family member present.
She was only released when the girls’ mother, Michelle Surrency, came upstate to get her.
The attack on the family spawned several lawsuits and a criminal investigation by Attorney General Letitia James.
“This should have been a traffic ticket,'' Goods' lawyer, Joseph O’Connor, told the Daily News.
The State Police pursuit policy says officers should minimize chases and refrain from using “reckless or hazardous measures,” even if a civilian is driving dangerously.
The policy demands pursuit end when the “immediacy of apprehension is outweighed by a clear and unreasonable danger to the public.”
Baldner remains assigned to desk duty, according to a spokesperson for the state police.