Jessica Beauvais, a 32-year-old Long Island woman, was held without bail in death of NYPD Officer Anastasio Tsakos, 43, on the Long Island Expressway around 2am Tuesday morning.
Officer Tsakos was on duty to direct traffic while other officers investigated a fatal car accident in Fresh Meadows, Queens. Tsako was standing next to his patrol car when Beauvais’s car veered and fatally struck him. A witness said that the driver swerved towards the cop to avoid hitting another vehicle. According to court documents, Beauvais is believed to have driven into the officer at full speed, hitting the officer head on and sending his body flying over 100 feet away as other officers ducked out of her way. Beauvais fled the scene. Officer Tsakos was taken to the hospital, but he died from his injuries.
Officer Tasso left behind two children, three-year-old son and six-year-old daughter, and a wife.
Before the incident, Beauvais posted a 1 hour and 50 minutes video to Facebook where she addressed the trial of Derek Chauvin. She took a jab at police officers and the justice system while vaping and drinking shots from a plastic cup and listening to N.W.A song “F**k Tha Police”. She admitted to cops that she was drinking vodka, wine and smoking weed before the deadly incident.
“I smoked a joint last night before my podcast that I did in Brooklyn; the podcast was from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. I brought the bottle of wine I had with me to the podcast. I had two shots of 1800 patron tequila.”
When police arrived to arrest her, she jumped a curb, put her car in reverse, and rammed a police car twice. Captured on bodycam saying, “What did I do?”
In her livestream Facebook video, she said that police officers are “signing up for potential death like in the army” and that it’s “part of the job” that people “might try to f**king kill you.”
“If you said that you were signing up for this dangerous job and part of that dangerous job is that you are not supposed to be afraid – as part of that job is that people might try to f**king kill you,” she says.
Beauvais said that if she ever going to have a fatal encounter with the police, she ensures that she is not going to die alone.
She said: “Like NWA say about the police – if you’re going to kill me, at least I get to take someone with me. I’m one of those people. If I’m going to go, someone is coming.”
Court docs show that the 32-year-old Beauvais thought that she was pulled over by police for “speeding”.
“I don’t know why they stopped me, speeding I guess,” she said, according to court papers.
“I did hear a thump, so I knew I hit something but I didn’t see what it was.”
The damage to Beauvais’s car was extensive, NYPD police commissioner Dermot Shea said that “there’s no way to not know that you struck an individual.”
Beauvais was driving under the influence with suspended license and could face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of killing an NYPD officer in an alleged hit-and-run while intoxicated. Her license was suspended in August 2019 for failing to pay DMV fees. In 2015, she was arrested on the same charge and had her license suspended on at least two other occasions.
The 32-year-old was hit with 13 charges in Queens Criminal Court yesterday.