The Police Department's Internal Affairs bureau has reopened an investigation in Saturday's hit-and-run that killed two parents in Staten Island's Tompkinsville community, a day after the Advance published surveillance video that appears to cast doubt on police claims no pursuit was involved.

A police spokesman would only confirm that investigators have reopened the probe. In the days following the deaths of livery cab driver Mohamed Elnahal, 50, and his wife, Mervat Saad Ibrahim, 52, the NYPD has insisted that police were not chasing a Mercedes-Benz at any time before it slammed into the couple's cab on Victory Boulevard and Cebra Avenue at 12:34 a.m., killing both.

But a surveillance video taken blocks from the scene of the crash and only a few minutes before the accident appears to show a police van speeding after a black sedan on residential Jackson Street with its lights blazing.

Here's the video:

Surveillance video

The alleged driver of the borrowed 1993 Mercedes-Benz, Theodore Ricks, 24, of New Brighton, allegedly tried to run from the scene of the accident and later said his victims "should have been wearing seat belts."

He is charged with two counts of second-degree manslaughter and is being held at Rikers Island without bail. His passenger, William Knight, 25, also of New Brighton, is charged with marijuana possession and resisting arrest.

The fatal crash left Elnahal and Mrs. Ibrahim's twin 13-year-old sons orphaned. Elnahal's sister and her husband hope to gain legal guardianship of the pair.

A family friend visiting from their native Egypt, Nabila Ahmed, 54, was in the back seat of the cab and was also injured in the crash. She is in stable condition at Richmond University Medical Center, West Brighton.

-- Reported by Phil Helsel