Streetsblog New York City

E. 108th Street and Park Avenue, where two cyclists have been killed by motorists in the past year. Image: Google Maps

For the second time in less than a year, a cyclist has been killed by a motorist at the intersection of E. 108th Street and Park Avenue, in East Harlem.

On Sunday evening at around 7:40 p.m., 18-year-old Marvin Ramirez was riding east on E. 108th when he was hit by the driver of a Dodge sedan, who was traveling north on Park, according to DNAinfo and the Post.

Ramirez suffered head trauma and died at Harlem Hospital. The driver was not charged.

Park Avenue is divided by the viaduct, which limits visibility at intersections, from E. 102nd Street to points north. One cyclist and three pedestrians were killed on Park between E. 97th and E. 132nd between 2000 and 2008, according to Transportation Alternatives’ CrashStat.

Published reports included no mention of driver speed. The Post took care to report, however, that “Police said the cyclist sailed through a steady red light.” Unless a motorist who kills a cyclist or pedestrian is drunk or leaves the scene, NYPD normally leaks crash information to the media only when it serves to exculpate the motorist.

Case in point: The Post and the Associated Press reported last week that a cyclist riding a Citi Bike ran a light before she was hit by a livery driver. Fortunately, the victim lived to tell her side of the story. According to writer and occasional Streetsblog contributor Alex Marshall, the victim says she was proceeding through a yellow light when the driver “jumped the green” in an attempt to get in front of another motorist. Many times, the victim of a bike or pedestrian crash is unable to rebut the driver’s version of events.

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A pedestrian and a cyclist are dead after a series of crashes in Brooklyn and the Bronx in which motorists also injured five other people. Three of the victims were teenagers. One crash left two young boys in critical condition. No charges are known to have been filed by NYPD or DAs Charles Hynes and Robert Johnson.

Zuleimi Torres. Photo: WEbook

On Friday afternoon, 16-year-old Zuleimi Torres was one of three people struck by the driver of an SUV on the Grand Concourse near Mt. Eden Parkway. From NY1:

Eyewitnesses said the car was going erratically down Grand Concourse, hit one pedestrian and then kept going and hit the other two pedestrians.

“He didn’t stop, he hit the first person, he did not stop. He just keep going and then we see the second one again got hit. We said, ‘Oh!’” a bystander said.

An off-duty officer arrested the driver as he tried to leave the car, but a breathalyzer test showed that the driver had no blood alcohol content.

Torres suffered a brain injury and died at St. Barnabas Hospital. Her friend, also 16, and the third victim, a 51-year-old woman, were hospitalized in stable condition.

Citing anonymous police sources, the Post reports that the driver “is not suspected of a crime,” and a “medical condition may have contributed” to the crash. ”Sources say the driver has a mental condition,” according to News 12. “Investigators say the driver will not face charges.”

In another crash early Sunday, an unidentified cyclist was killed by a livery cab driver in Crown Heights. From the Post:

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A DOT employee who crushed a Manhattan pedestrian with a dump truck and left the scene was not charged with a crime, was cleared of all traffic violations, and remains on the payroll.

It is unknown whether Harry Robinson is still driving vehicles for DOT, as the agency would not discuss details of his employment due to a pending civil case.

Roxana Sorina Buta. Photo via DNAinfo

Robinson, 64, was found not guilty in traffic court on May 9 of failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care in the killing of Roxana Buta, according to DMV records.

At approximately 1:30 a.m. on May 24, 2012, as Buta crossed Broadway at 14th Street, in the crosswalk and with the light, Robinson made a right turn, ran her over and kept going.

An aspiring actress, Buta was on her way home to East Harlem from the restaurant where she worked. She was 21.

Last June it was reported that Buta’s killer had been identified. Though Robinson’s name was not released, the attorney hired by Buta’s family said police confirmed that the driver worked for DOT. Streetsblog contacted DOT last year to verify that the driver was an agency employee and, if so, whether the driver continued to operate DOT vehicles on the job, but received no response.

DOT told us this week that Robinson has worked as a highway repair worker since 2000. A spokesperson said that, due to pending litigation, the agency was prohibited from answering specific questions, including whether internal protocols or contract rules govern the disciplining or firing of DOT employees. Buta’s family has filed a civil suit claiming negligence on the part of Robinson, DOT, the Department of Design and Construction, and Mack Trucks.

A Department of Sanitation spokesperson told Streetsblog that agency is guided by internal policies in dealing with employees who are involved in serious crashes while on the job, but did not elaborate on what those policies are. We have also reached out to the Parks Department.

The Post reports that Robinson took the corner “at an unknown speed.” Also unknown: what steps, if any, NYPD and District Attorney Cy Vance took to measure Robinson’s speed, a factor that would have determined whether Buta lived or died. But police did say Buta was talking on a cell phone and had a blood alcohol level of .06, which is perfectly legal while walking.

Robinson was reportedly excused from prosecution because authorities could not prove he knew he had run Buta over. If this is true — Vance’s office does not discuss vehicular crimes cases, even when no charges are filed — it would mean leaving the scene was the only charge considered.

Buta was one of at least 37 pedestrians and cyclists killed by hit-and-run drivers in NYC since January 2012, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog. Council Member Leroy Comrie this week announced legislation that would force NYPD to report on its handling of hit-and-run crash investigations.

Queens City Council Member Leroy Comrie is set to introduce a bill that may have an impact on how NYPD approaches hit-and-run crashes, which kill dozens of NYC pedestrians and cyclists a year.

Leroy Comrie. Photo: Observer

A statement from Comrie’s office says the bill would require NYPD to report to the council annually on “hit and run incidents that result in a fatality or severe injury with a description of all actions that were taken to determine who was responsible.” Comrie also plans to introduce a resolution “calling for the NYPD to include the mandatory collection of video surveillance from cameras within the vicinity of a hit-and-run accident that results in a fatality or severe injury.”

At least 37 pedestrians and cyclists have been killed by hit-and-run drivers in NYC since January 2012, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog. The vast majority of drivers involved in those crashes were not immediately caught or identified.

A loophole in state law gives motorists who have been drinking an incentive to flee the scene of a crash, and many hit-and-run cases are closed when a driver says he or she did not see the victim.

We’ve asked Comrie’s staff how the bill and resolution will define “severe injury.” The new NYPD protocol, announced earlier this year, is intended to trigger investigations of incidents involving critical injury, a standard that excludes many crashes.

Comrie voted in favor of the proposed NYC speed camera demonstration program, now stalled in the state legislature, and is a supporter of red light cameras. He is scheduled to announce the hit-and-run bill and resolution this afternoon in Cambria Heights, at an intersection where a motorist was killed in a high-speed crash in 2012.

A Sheepshead Bay driver who ran a red light, jumped a curb and struck three people, killing one, has not been charged criminally by NYPD or Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

The mother and fiancé of Yuliya Hermanska. Photo: Daily News

Yuliya Hermanska, 27, died from her injuries a week after the March 23 crash, according to the Daily News.

Police say the driver, Mikhail Nulman, was issued a summons for blowing through the red light at Ocean and Voorhies Aves. He swerved to avoid a collision with a turning car but lost control and mounted the curb, driving nearly 70 feet on the sidewalk and striking Hermanska and two teenage girls, both of whom survived, according to police accounts.

NYPD and a Hynes spokesperson told the Daily News that the case remains open. But despite the allegation that Nulman ran a red, and evidence that speed was a factor in the crash, Hermanska’s family and their attorney believe Nulman will not be charged for her death.

“He’s going to walk away,” said Vitaly Obodovsky, Hermanska’s fiancé. “Where’s the justice then? People go to jail for just being drunk behind the wheel and here they killed her.”

Edward Steinberg, a lawyer representing the victim’s family, said the case is a too-common example of a vehicular fatality involving an out-of-control driver that prosecutors fail to act on because neither alcohol nor drugs was involved.

To Steinberg’s point, this crash occurred a month after Martha Atwater was killed by a curb-jumping motorist in Cobble Hill, and a week before toddler Denim McLean and nine others were hit by a driver at a bus stop in East Flatbush. At least six people in NYC have been fatally struck on sidewalks, in green spaces, and inside places of business in 2013, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog. In addition to the three victims in Brooklyn, one person was killed in the Bronx, one in Queens, and one in Manhattan.

No charges are known to have been filed against any of the drivers in these crashes.

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NYPD has reportedly changed its story about what happened to Tamon Robinson, the man who suffered fatal injuries when he was chased by officers in a police cruiser through a housing complex in Brooklyn. Whereas witnesses said police ran Robinson over, NYPD now claims the victim killed himself by running into the police cruiser, which wasn’t moving.

Witnesses say cops ran over Tamon Robinson, then dragged him, unconscious, from beneath the cruiser.

Meanwhile, the Daily News reports that, a year after the crash, District Attorney Charles Hynes has yet to decide whether to bring the case to a grand jury.

Tamon Robinson, 27, was loading paving stones into an SUV at Bayview Houses in Canarsie on April 12, 2012, when according to press accounts he was chased by officers who believed he was stealing the bricks. From a Times story published a week later, after Robinson had died: “Mr. Robinson ran toward his building, but a police car hit him before he reached it, according to a police report about the events.”

The Times said the Internal Affairs Bureau was investigating Robinson’s death.

Contrary to the initial NYPD account, on Saturday the Daily News reported that the official NYPD report claims “the police car was stopped on a footpath outside the Bayview Houses last April when Robinson ‘did run into’ the vehicle, causing him to fall backward and strike his head.”

This story would strain credulity even without conflicting reports from people who saw the crash. DNAinfo reported that, according to witnesses, “police at the scene pulled Robinson from under the car, yelling ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ before bouncing him off the hood of the car.”

The Daily News says an independent expert has been hired by Hynes’s office to reconstruct the crash. “We can’t make a decision until we have the final report,” said a Hynes spokesperson.

NYPD sent Robinson’s family a bill for damage to the cruiser, but rescinded it after the media picked up the story.

In another instance of NYPD using a police car as a deadly weapon, last August officers rammed a dirt bike in the Bronx, killing the bike’s operator and injuring a passenger. The Daily News notes that the NYPD Patrol Guide “prohibits ‘ramming’ in an attempt to stop a vehicle.”

Buried in Comptroller John Liu’s ”People’s Budget” proposal released last week (way below the part about bridge tolls that New Yorkers don’t have to pay) is an interesting proposal about NYPD’s crash investigation staffing.

Photo: NYC Comptroller

With additional revenue, largely from income taxes and the bridge tolls for non-residents, Liu proposes increasing the staff level of the NYPD’s Collision Investigation Squad to 177, part of a broader plan to hire 5,000 more officers by 2017. From the proposal:

The lack of personnel to investigate traffic crashes is limiting the City’s ability to identify the causes of crashes and mitigate unsafe conditions, as well as defend itself from lawsuits. In FY 2011 there were 243 killed and 3,138 seriously injured in traffic crashes, but only 304 crashes were investigated by the NYPD. Traffic related claims against the City resulted in $105 million in liability payments and judgments by the City.

Last year, what was then known as the Accident Investigation Squad had a staff of 19. Commissioner Ray Kelly has increased the size of the squad by 50 percent, but the staffing is still far out of proportion to the number of serious crashes that occur each year.

While the comptroller has absolutely no power over NYPD staffing levels, Liu’s proposal puts the idea out there that the department can increase crash investigation resources to the point that all serious traffic injuries will be looked into by trained personnel.

“The fact that this Comptroller proposed increased funding for street safety — particularly in the area of crash investigations — should make it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that more needs to be done to protect New Yorkers from dangerous drivers,” said Transportation Alternatives in a statement.

Through a spokesperson, Council Member Peter F. Vallone Jr., chair of the public safety committee, also expressed strong support for Liu’s proposal to increase the size of NYPD’s collision investigation staff.

The brother of a man killed in an apparent dooring incident in the Bronx, a crash that NYPD failed to investigate for over a month, says police have stopped working the case due to a lack of evidence, DNAinfo reports.

Joseph Nelson. Photo via DNAinfo

Joseph Nelson, 54, was riding his bike near the intersection of Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue on the afternoon of April 14, 2012, when according to an autopsy report he collided with the open door of a parked car. Paramedics found Nelson unconscious in the street.

Nelson died shortly after the crash, but the 52nd Precinct did not inform the NYPD Accident Investigation Squad until May 18.

The victim’s brother, John Nelson, told DNAinfo last October that NYPD was uncommunicative after the department told him of his brother’s death. ”I got one initial call,” said Nelson. “Aside from that, I got no information, no assistance, nothing at all from the Police Department.”

As in other instances where AIS failed to begin its work immediately after a crash that resulted in the death of a cyclist or pedestrian, police said they had no evidence to pursue the case. In October an investigator told John Nelson the file would be closed. In a follow-up DNAinfo story published today, Nelson, who planned to travel from Virginia for the installation of his brother’s Ghost Bike memorial, said he has not spoken with investigators since. Streetsblog has asked NYPD for confirmation that police stopped investigating the crash.

“My brother wasn’t trash. He wasn’t a throwaway or disposable,” Nelson said, fairly encapsulating the NYPD approach to cyclist and pedestrian injuries and deaths.

For years, it was NYPD policy to investigate a traffic crash only when a victim was dead or believed likely to die. When a doctor told officers that cyclist Stefanos Tsigrimanis wasn’t in mortal danger after he was hit by a driver in Brooklyn, AIS did not return to the scene for 46 days. Because NYPD did not know that Brooklyn pedestrian Clara Heyworth had died after she was struck by an unlicensed driver who was believed to be drunk, AIS was not dispatched for at least three days. Prosecutors dropped all charges related to Heyworth’s death, and her husband has filed a lawsuit against NYPD for failing to properly investigate the crash. Police initially blamed Brooklyn cyclist Mathieu Lefevre for his own death, with prosecutors from the office of District Attorney Charles Hynes taking up the case after Lefevre’s family got the attention of the media.

In March NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced that the department would abandon the “dead or likely to die” protocol, and assign more officers to investigate crashes. Nevertheless, NYPD continues to declare “no criminality suspected” almost immediately after collisions that cause injury and death.

Denim McLean, the toddler who was one of 10 people struck by a curb-jumping motorist in East Flatbush last month, died from his injuries.

NYPD had a litany of excuses, but no charges, for the curb-jumping driver who killed 2-year-old Denim McLean. Photo via Daily News

NYPD initially told the media that the driver was northbound on Utica Avenue near Church Avenue when she swerved to avoid another vehicle. Police also said the 48-year-old driver ”accidentally” hit the accelerator instead of the brake as she approached a red light. Over the weekend the Post reported that the driver “told investigators her brakes failed before she blew a light and jumped the sidewalk.” No charges were filed by police or Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

In the words of Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., this crash is another example of NYPD acting as defense counsel for the driver. More important, it again points to a justice system that cares less about the car on the bloody sidewalk than the feelings of the motorist who put it there.

A study conducted by doctors and researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center found that 6 percent of pedestrians injured by motorists were struck while on a sidewalk. Days before the crash that killed Denim McLean, the Post talked to attorney Steve Vaccaro about motorists who have escaped charges for recent curb-jumping incidents that resulted in death or injury. Of the driver who put 90-year-old Mansoor Day in extremely critical condition, an anonymous source said the “Manhattan District Attorney’s Office found that his behavior did not amount to criminality.” Likewise, the drivers who killed pedestrians Tenzin Drudak in Queens and Martha Atwater in Brooklyn were not charged for causing a death. Wrote the Post:

Under the law, when drivers haven’t been drinking, prosecutors must first find “recklessness” when applying the most serious criminal charges.

That means the driver was aware of the risk of his or her behavior but disregarded it anyway — a state of mind that is often difficult to prove in court.

One way to increase the odds of criminalizing driver behavior would be to presume that any motorist who ended up on the sidewalk was reckless.

That would put the onus on the driver to explain how he got up there, similar to the presumption of recklessness assumed for drivers who get behind the wheel sloshed.

Others are ahead of New York in penalizing reckless drivers. In Alabama, to cause a death while violating a traffic law is to commit homicide, regardless of intent. The Washington, DC, negligent homicide statute specifically precludes willful or wanton acts, and requires only that a vehicular death be precipitated by careless or reckless driving.

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The pedestrian killed by a truck driver at Flatbush and Atlantic on Wednesday has been identified as Irvin Gitlitz, 83, according to NYPD.

The truck involved in the crash that killed Irvin Gitlitz did not have required crossover mirrors. The driver was not summonsed. Photo: DNAinfo

Police say Gitlitz stepped between parked cars into the path of the truck driver, who was not charged or summonsed. Photos of the scene indicate that the truck was not equipped with required crossover mirrors, which enable the driver to see what’s directly in front of the cab.

Gitlitz lived a short distance away, at 334 Bergen Street, a police spokesperson said. The crash occurred in the 78th Precinct, near the location where another pedestrian, Ronald Sinvil, was killed by the driver of a city sanitation vehicle last December.

Gitlitz was at least the eleventh senior to die in city traffic in 2013, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog, and at least the third NYC pedestrian killed by a tractor-trailer driver in the last five weeks.

Another Wednesday crash claimed the life of a pedestrian in Elmhurst. Police say a man stepped between parked vehicles into the path of an MTA bus, on Broadway near 77th Street, at around 7:30 last night. The victim carried no identification, and as of this morning NYPD did not know who he was. The Q53 was carrying passengers at the time of the crash, according to reports. No summonses were issued.

Last night’s fatal crash occurred in the 110th Precinct, and in the City Council district represented by Daniel Dromm.