An NYPD detective who had been in a coma for three decades after suffering "catastrophic" injuries in a 1990 Brooklyn shooting has died, the police commissioner announced Sunday.
Troy Patterson died Saturday night, NYPD Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced the following day. He passed away at a rehabilitation center in New Jersey, the Daily News reported.
Patterson wasn't on duty -- he was washing his car -- when he was shot in the head by a 15-year-old who, with two other men, approached him outside his Bedford-Stuyvesant home and demanded $20. It was Jan. 16, 1990.
Patterson, then 27, never regained consciousness. He had joined the NYPD seven years earlier, working out of the 60th Precinct on Coney Island -- and was the father of a 5-year-old boy at the time of the shooting.
His son, who goes by the same name, told the News a few years back that he still felt his father could listen, that he heard his voice and felt his presence.
Friends and colleagues have been holding candlelight vigils on the anniversary of the shooting. As recently as last year, attendees reported he was "still trying to come through," according to the News.
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The 15-year-old shooter and two other suspects, a 20-year-old and a 17-year-old, were arrested after his shooting. They all served time for various convictions and have since been released, the paper reported.
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Patterson was posthumously promoted to the rank of detective. His precinct confirmed his death "with a heavy heart" on Twitter. Sewell offered condolences as well.
