CHEEKTOWAGA, NY - Cheektowaga police say tips from the public have been helpful in their investigation of a fatal hit and run which occurred on Genesee Street near the Buffalo Airport in the early morning hours of August 8.
Robert Prigl, 55, of Depew and Fort Myers, Fla., was struck at 4:50 a.m.
According to police, Prigl was walking to the airport to catch a flight back to Florida after visiting family in Western New York when he was hit.
Police have released both video of a suspect vehicle (obtained from one of the businesses across the street from where the accident occurred) and images of evidence recovered from the scene.
The images are of small parts, some less than an inch long, which may have come off the vehicle and which were gathered at the scene according to Assistant Chief of Police James Speyer.
Along with providing the images to the media, police posted the images on the department’s Facebook page in order to get them in front of as many people as possible
“If you think about the internet, there's almost no limit to its reach…the more eyes on it (the evidence) the better it is for us," Speyer said.
One Facebook post called specifically on mechanics and collision personnel to see if they could help identify the parts because it was difficult for police to do so, given their size and indistinguishable nature.
“Every little piece of the puzzle helps put the picture together," said Speyer. “We now believe we know what these parts are.”
However, Speyer declined to state what parts they are believed to be, and thus what kind of car they may have come from.
“We are not going to release that (information) at this time because we don’t want to tip our hand too much," he said.
Speyer stated that police have received approximately 100 “decent tips” as a result of their Facebook posts about the case, and their quest to identify the car parts and the car from the images they posted.
“Let’s not forget the victims in all of this….this man and his family who lost a son,” Speyer said. “We would like an individual, who made a mistake, to start to thinking rationally about this and come forward.”