New Mexico police officer suspended after shooting at minivan full of kids

 Dashcam video of a traffic-stop dispute in New Mexico involving several police officers and a minivan with children inside shows one of the officers firing at the fan as it fled the scene. In his report, that officer said he was attempting to shoot out one of the vehicle's tires to prevent it from fleeing.By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC NewsA New Mexico State Police officer who fired at a minivan full of children during a traffic stop last month has been suspended.Officer Elias Montoya has been suspended with pay pending a disciplinary investigation into a traffic incident that took place near the town of Taos, New Mexico State Police Chief Pete Kassetas told The Associated Press Thursday.The incident was captured by a dashboard camera on the police vehicle. As driver Oriana Farrell drives away from a traffic stop inwhich another officer bashed her van's window with his stick, Montoya can be seen shooting at the vehicle full of kids as young as six.Farrell then takes off on a four-minute high speed chase into Taos and cutting in the wrong way traffic before eventually pulling over and giving up in front of a hotel. She and her 14-year-old son were later arrested.The woman had been stopped for speeding and fled twice after arguing with an officer. The video garnered national attention, and Kassetas said he would launch an internal investigation, according to the AP.The Associated Press contributed to this report

Driver in New York train crash suspended without pay, railroad says

  Eric Thayer / ReutersEngineer William Rockefeller is loaded into an ambulance after the derailment Sunday.By Andrew Siff, NBC New York, and Erin McClam, NBC NewsThe engineer who drove the New York commuter train that took a curve at 82 mph and flew off the tracks, killing four people, has been suspended without pay since the crash, a spokeswoman for the transit authority said Thursday.The engineer, William Rockefeller, has told federal investigators that he was “in a daze situation” before the crash and hit the brakes too late, his lawyer told NBC News earlier this week.The transit spokeswoman told NBC New York that Rockefeller was suspended immediately after the derailment, as soon as drug test was ordered, according to the policy of the railroad, Metro-North.Rockefeller, 45, is a 15-year veteran of the railroad. Carlo Allegri / ReutersAt least four people were killed and 63 others were injured when a Metro-North train jumped the tracks as it was rounding a curve about 100 yards from a stop.Besides the four killed, 63 people were injured when the train, making an early-morning run from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, ran off the rails at a sharp curve and came to rest inches from the Harlem River.The lawyer, Jeffrey Chartier, said that Rockefeller had slept from 8:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. and felt rested before he reported to work at 5 a.m. the day of the crash. He had worked an afternoon shift for years until two weeks earlier, transit sources have said.Chartier also characterized the engineer’s state before the crash as “an autopilot kind of thing.” The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday that fatigue has been “an insidious problem, particularly in the rail industry.”Sleep experts have said that Rockefeller’s condition could have been similar to what is known as highway hypnosis, in which drivers zone out on long stretches of monotonous interstate drives.Investigators said earlier this week that they had found no problems with the train’s brakes, the tracks or the signals. Authorities are awaiting drug and alcohol tests on Rockefeller, but a breath test at the scene was negative.This story was originally published on Thu Dec 5, 2013 8:32 AM EST