Man dies after wreck with off-duty cop

This post has been updated.

A Fishtown man who got into a car accident with an off-duty Philadelphia police sergeant Saturday night has died, and police now are investigating whether either driver was impaired by alcohol or drugs.

Sgt. Thomas Winkis was driving a Dodge Challenger on State Road near Ashburner Street in Holmesburg just before midnight Saturday, when he collided with a Ford Econoline van driven by David Farries, 55, of Oxford Street near Thompson, sources said.

Farries, who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, was thrown from his van. Paramedics rushed him to Aria Hospital's Torresdale campus, where he died at 7 a.m. yesterday from multiple injuries, said Officer Jillian Russell, a police spokeswoman. Winkis suffered a broken wrist, and a female passenger was uninjured. Investigators from the Accident Investigation District haven't yet determined who was at fault for the collision, which happened at an intersection where the traffic light was flashing yellow for motorists heading north or south and red for those east- or westbound. Winkis was heading south on State, and Farries was on Ashburner.

Winkis, who joined the force in 1992, works as an aide to Dep. Commissioner Thomas Wright, who oversees special investigations and homeland security, sources said. Just two nights before the wreck, officers gathered at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge # 5's hall for a fundraiser to support Winkis' family after his ex-wife Michelle, an officer in the 26th District at Girard and Montgomery avenues, died Sept. 7 of a brain aneurysm.