NYPD officers fatally shot the driver of a white van on Brooklyn's Belt Parkway on Saturday evening, November 14, after police responded to a report of a possible abduction in Coney Island, the department said. The driver was identified on Sunday as Omatoyo Neverson, 26, law-enforcement sources told the New York Post.
Source: New York Post via InterNewsCast
The incident began at about 7:19 p.m. on Saturday, when two people called 911 within the NYPD's 60th Precinct, which covers Coney Island. The callers reported seeing or hearing a woman struggling and screaming for help inside a white van near West 22nd Street and Surf Avenue, close to Seaside Park, NYPD Assistant Chief Charles Minch said at a Sunday briefing.
Source: NYPD briefing via Wick Worldwide / Gothamist
The woman got out of the van before the first officers reached the vehicle and was unharmed, Assistant Chief Minch said. Police say the van then fled toward the eastbound Belt Parkway. Early reports that a child might be inside the van were not borne out: police later confirmed no child was found in the vehicle, and the person heard screaming was the woman.
What police say happened on the parkway
According to Minch, the van slowed in heavy traffic on the Belt Parkway near Exit 8, in the Sheepshead Bay area. Officers approached on foot and ordered the driver out. Police say the driver instead drove forward and backward, striking police vehicles and occupied civilian vehicles. Officers used a Taser and pepper spray, which police say did not stop him, and video from the scene showed officers trying to break the van's windows as it kept hitting other vehicles.
Multiple officers then fired their weapons. Neverson was taken to NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn, where he was pronounced dead at about 8 p.m., roughly half an hour after the first 911 call. No officers were reported injured. Investigators have not yet said publicly how many officers fired or how many shots were discharged, and police say body cameras recorded the confrontation.
Who the driver was, according to police sources
Law-enforcement sources told the Post that Neverson had been arrested 25 times before, including 22 cases that were sealed and one that was voided. Police allege he was wanted in connection with an incident on November 2 in Brooklyn, in which he was accused of throwing his former girlfriend to the ground, and over an earlier accusation of unlawful imprisonment from October 2024, in which he allegedly prevented the same woman from leaving her apartment. Minch said the driver was wanted in earlier unlawful-imprisonment and domestic-assault cases involving the same woman. All of these are police allegations, not court findings, and they are reported here as allegations.
Sources also alleged that Neverson attempted to abduct the woman shortly before 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, which triggered the police response. Whether the woman was forced into the van or got in another way has not been established publicly, and the possible-abduction report itself remains under investigation alongside the shooting.
Road closures and the investigation
The pursuit and shooting shut the Belt Parkway in both directions for hours on Saturday night while investigators processed the scene, causing major congestion on one of the main road links across southern Brooklyn. Drivers were questioned as witnesses, and crime-scene investigators worked across the damaged vehicles left on the roadway.
An NYPD lieutenant and three officers involved in the confrontation have been placed on modified duty. The shooting is being examined by the New York State Attorney General's office, as is required in cases where police gunfire kills a person in New York. The InterNewsCast report said the incident was at least the 10th fatal officer-involved shooting reported in New York City in 2026.
The Attorney General's office review, the NYPD's own investigation and the body-camera recordings will decide the official account of the shooting. Police have not yet released the number of shots fired, and the woman at the centre of the original 911 calls has not been publicly identified. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when the Attorney General's office or the NYPD releases further findings.
For Punjabi and South Asian families across Brooklyn, Queens and the wider New York area who use the Belt Parkway daily, the closure was a reminder of how quickly a police emergency can shut a corridor thousands of commuters depend on. The central facts, however, remain the ones police stated on Sunday: a woman reported in danger got out safely, and the driver who fled from officers is dead, with his actions and the officers' response now under state-level review.