In this photo copied from the 2010 Sleepy Hollow High School yearbook, high school student Andrea Rubello is shown. (AP Photo/Sleepy Hollow High School)
by Verena Dobnik
NEW YORK (AP) — The police officer who accidentally killed a Long Island college student along with an armed intruder faced perhaps the most harrowing decision in law enforcement: choosing the split-second moment when the risk is so high that you must pull the trigger.
That’s the moment authorities say a Nassau County police officer experienced early Friday morning when a masked man holding 21-year-old Andrea Rebello in a headlock pointed a loaded handgun at him.
“The big question is, how do you know, when someone’s pointing a gun at you, whether you should keep talking to them, or shoot?” said Michele Galietta, a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who helps train police officers. “That’s what makes the job of an officer amazingly difficult.”
She spoke Sunday as Hofstra University students honored Rebello, a popular public relations major, by wearing white ribbons at their graduation ceremony.
On Saturday evening, flags on the Hempstead campus were at half-staff and students held a silent outdoor vigil in front of a photo of the young woman. Surrounded by candles and flowers, they sang “Ave Maria.”
Rebello’s funeral is scheduled for Wednesday in Sleepy Hollow, in Westchester County, north of New York City.
Her life ended in the seconds that forced the veteran police officer to make a fatal decision, but the questions surrounding the student’s death are just beginning, along with an internal investigation by the Nassau County Police Department.
The bare facts are simple.
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