Body cam shows Daniel Legler being fatally shot when he fired toward NY State Trooper Dominick Caito
By: New York State Police at a Tuesday morning news conference in Ontario County identified the trooper and the man he fatally shot over the weekend following a brief pursuit that ended in Gates.
Daniel R. Legler, 35, of Chili, was fatally shot Sunday night when he allegedly fired toward Trooper Dominick Caito, a 9-year New York State Police veteran, said Samuel Spezio, captain of Troop E's Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The fatal encounter followed a pursuit that started on Interstate 490, near Innovative Field, in Rochester when Caito attempted to stop a westbound car with an expired state inspection. Legler did not comply and drove west on I-490 to Route 531 in Gates, Spezio said. The trooper followed.
About three minutes after the initial attempted traffic stop, Legler exited the highway at Rochester Tech Park on Elmgrove Road, struck a guard rail on a sharp curve of the ramp, jumped a curb, struck an earth embankment and drove into a field where he got out of the car, Spezio said.
As the trooper attempted to arrest the driver, the two men struggled and Legler fired one round from his handgun "in close proximity to the trooper." Caito returned fire, killing Legler.
Caito was not injured.
Spezio said Caito's body-worn camera recorded the encounter and was reviewed by State Police before it was turned over to the State Attorney General's Office of Special Investigation, which is investigating the fatal shooting. The AG's office said that officials recovered a gun from the scene.
"Upon review of this footage, there is no question based on his immediate action to the sound of gunfire, Trooper Caito knew exactly what he was confronted with and responded as he had been trained," Spezio said.
Spezio said that Legler was not known to State Police, but that he had a criminal history and was a convicted felon who could not legally possess a gun. According to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Legler spent several years in state prison for an attempted burglary conviction. Spezio also said that there was cocaine in Legler's system when he died.