Suspect in Belt Parkway Murder of Off-Duty Firefighter Walked Out of 62nd Precinct

December 18, 2018 Meaghan McGoldrick
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Twenty-nine-year-old Joseph Desmond, the suspect taken into custody last week in connection to the Dec. 9 road rage murder of FDNY firefighter Faizal Coto, was walked out of the 62nd Precinct Tuesday afternoon after being charged with murder.

According to authorities, Coto — a three-year member of the FDNY who was also a rapper, using the stage name FAIYA — was killed following a fender-bender between Coto’s car and another vehicle on the eastbound Belt Parkway at the Fourth Avenue ramp.

Coto, 33, was found dead next to his 2008 Ford Mustang on the right shoulder of the Bay Eighth Street and Shore Parkway exit. The medical examiner later determined the cause of death to be blunt force trauma of the head, and the death was officially ruled a homicide.

Desmond was arrested on Tues., Dec. 11 in a motel in New Jersey. He was tracked thanks to a surveillance image of his car.

Friends, family and fellow firefighters came together in the days after Desmond’s arrest at both a wake and a funeral held at Leone Funeral Home in Sunset Park.

Coto was remembered as “everybody’s best friend,” “the hardest worker in the firehouse” and a “phenomenal human being.”

He was off-duty at the time of his death.

There was a crowd of firefighters awaiting Desmond outside the precinct, located at 1925 Bath Ave.

Additional reporting contributed by Christina Carrega and Jaime DeJesus.

Firefighters waiting to see the suspect brought out of the precinct building.
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