"ANOTHER COP GOES BAD"

"BADGE OF DISHONOR"

Cop Held in Slaying at Mall

April 13, 2004

By Jesse J. Smith

MIDDLETOWN - An Orange County police officer has been arrested and charged with murder in the March 13 ambush slaying of a Pine Bush man in the parking lot of the Galleria at Crystal Run shopping mall in the town of Wallkill.

Kevin M. Griffin, 40, an Ellenville resident and a 15-year veteran of the town of Crawford Police Department, was arrested without incident late Friday night during a traffic stop a short distance from his home at 14 Bartlett St. in Ellenville, state police said Monday. He was charged with second-degree murder in the gunshot slaying of Timothy J. Ruiz, 22.

Griffin was arraigned in Wallkill Town Court and sent to the Orange County Jail without bail.

The arrest followed what police described Monday as an "intense" a four week investigation by state police, the Orange County District Attorney's Office and mall security officers. Police said Griffin made several admissions to investigators, implicating himself in the killing.

Police would not offer a motive for the killing, but said that following his arrest, Griffin told investigators that he believed his girlfriend, who worked as an assistant manager at the Old Navy store at the mall, was involved in some type of relationship with Ruiz.

"We believe jealousy was a factor in the killing," said state police Capt. Wayne Olson.

Ruiz was mortally wounded by a single gunshot wound to the chest as he left his job as a manager of the Old Navy store around 7 p.m. March 13. Police said Griffin lay in wait for Ruiz to leave work, then fired the fatal shot from his sport utility vehicle.

Olson said the killing followed a series of threatening phone calls and letters aimed at Ruiz and other employees of the Old Navy store, along with several incidents of vandalism to Ruiz's car. He would not say if Griffin's girlfriend was one of the Old Navy employees who received the threatening letters and calls at work.

In late February, Olson said, someone fired a bullet through the front window of the Pine Bush home Ruiz shared with his parents. A .22-caliber bullet recovered by police following the incident was examined by state police forensic investigators and was found to match the bullet removed from Ruiz's chest and a Marlin bolt-action rifle discovered during a search of Griffin's home.

Olson said troopers were still investigating the vandalism and shooting incidents at the time of Ruiz's slaying. He said Griffin's name did not surface until late in the four-week investigation into the killing.

According to Crawford Police Chief Daniel P. McCann, Griffin began working for the department in 1988. He previously worked as a part-time police officer in Montgomery.

Griffin was removed from active duty and placed on disability following a July 2001 patrol car accident, McCann said. He said Griffin had earned several commendations and had never received an official reprimand during his time on the 19-member police force.

"He was an average police officer," said McCann. "He came in, did his job in a professional manner, and, when the job was done, he went home."

McCann said Griffin was divorced from his wife, with whom he had had several children.