MIT student from Bay Area killed by drunk NYPD cop, officials say

Andrew Esquivel, 21, was killed Saturday by an off-duty New York City officer who was driving drunk, police say. Andrew Esquivel, 21, was killed Saturday by an off-duty New York City officer who was driving drunk, police say. Photo: Courtesy: Scott Weidemier Photo: Courtesy: Scott Weidemier Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close MIT student from Bay Area killed by drunk NYPD cop, officials say 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

The man killed over the weekend allegedly by a drunken off-duty New York City police officer was a Bay Area native one year away from graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, school officials said Monday.

Andrew Esquivel, 21, known to friends and relatives as Drew, was walking with a group on a busy block in Brooklyn when a rookie officer drove his sport utility vehicle onto the sidewalk early Saturday, hitting the four pedestrians and leaving them with serious head and body trauma, officials said.

Esquivel, who graduated from Healdsburg High School, was in New York working as a summer intern for the mobile marketing firm Appboy. On the MIT campus, he was a wrestling club officer and research assistant in the Laboratory for Computational Physiology, which develops electronic medical record systems for underserved communities, according to a letter sent Monday to students from MIT Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart.

He was set to earn a bachelor’s degree next year in electrical engineering and computer science.

“He was just that person that everybody loved,” said Scott Weidemier, Esquivel’s high school wrestling coach and family friend. “He was a kind, genuine soul.

“It was obvious how intelligent he was,” Weidemier said. “He put the rest of us dummies to shame.”

The officer, 28-year-old Nicholas Batka, was arrested and charged with manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, assault, driving while intoxicated, driving while his ability was impaired and driving on a sidewalk, police said. Batka, who had been on the force since January 2015, was immediately suspended.

Witnesses to the crash at Bedford Avenue near North Eighth Street in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood said Batka got back into his vehicle after the crash and tried to flee, according to the New York Daily News. The officer was due at work four hours later, the reports said.

MIT student Sophia Tabchouri, recent MIT alumnus James Balchunas and a New York University student were injured in the crash and taken to nearby hospitals, university officials said. Esquivel was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, and his peers were in stable condition Monday, police said.

Mike Efram, Esquivel’s calculus and computer science teacher at Healdsburg High, called the former student “one of the best.”

“He would always come back and visit,” Efram said. “We’d always joke that he’d go and do great things and come back and take my job. It’s so unfair what happened.”

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov