Streetsblog New York City

An outlaw committed suicide on Sixth Avenue early Sunday morning. At least that’s how the death of Dan Fellegara was reported by the Post and Daily News.

Dan Fellegara. Photo via Facebook

Fellegara, a construction manager from Baltimore who, according to most accounts, was 29, was crossing Sixth at Watts Street in Soho at around 4:30 a.m. when he fell and was run over by a cab driver. From the News:

“They crossed on the red light,” said the cabbie, who declined to use his name.

“They were running across, but one of the guys fell.”

The driver said he had no time to stop.

“I hit the brake, but I ran over him,” he said. “He ended up under the car. It was really bad.”

Under the headline “Taxi kills jaywalking man in SoHo,” the Post explains: “[Fellegara] was crossing against the light … when he fell in the street and was hit by the oncoming yellow cab, police said.” NYPD told Gothamist the victim was “attempting to evade oncoming traffic” and was “inadvertently struck.” The driver was not charged.

It could be that Fellegara tried to run across Sixth Avenue against the light knowing that vehicles were approaching. But if you want to know how fast the cab driver was going, a factor that could have determined whether Fellegara lived or died, that information is apparently considered irrelevant by NYPD and city media. While questions of right of way are reported and repeated by default in cases like this one, driver speed is almost never mentioned by police in press accounts.

Note that the right of way question is only hammered home when the driver “has the light.” In the thousands of cases where a pedestrian or cyclist has the right of way and is nonetheless injured or killed by an errant driver, the crash is virtually always deemed an “accident” by police and the media. This double standard goes a long way toward explaining why crossing against a light, or crossing mid-block, is considered akin to jumping in front of a train.

This fatal crash occurred in the 1st Precinct. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector Edward J. Winski, the commanding officer, head to the next precinct community council meeting. The 1st Precinct council meetings happen at 6:30 p.m. on the last Thursday of each month at the precinct, 16 Ericsson Place. Call the precinct at 212-334-0640 for information.

Timothy Keith

Timothy Keith, the 5-year-old boy who was hit by a cab driver in Brooklyn earlier this month, died days later from his injuries.

Timothy was walking with his parents on Hicks Street in Cobble Hill on the afternoon of April 14 when, according to NYPD, he ran into the street and was struck by a cab driver.

The driver told police he “couldn’t stop in time.” He was not charged.

It was reported on April 16 that Timothy was brain dead. He died the next day, according to a web site set up to accept donations to help the Keiths pay for funeral and travel expenses.

Timothy and his parents were in from DC, on their first family trip to the city.

This fatal crash occurred in the 76th Precinct. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Captain Jeffrey Schiff, the commanding officer, head to the next precinct community council meeting. The 76th Precinct council meetings happen at at 7:30 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month at the precinct, 191 Union Street. Call 718-834-3207 for information.

Mike Rogalle, the UPS worker struck while on the job in Lower Manhattan last week, has died.

No crime or traffic violation occurred at this fatal crash scene, according to NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. Photo: WNBC

Rogalle was on the sidewalk near 15 Beekman Street at 4:39 p.m. on Tuesday, April 17, when the driver of a GMC SUV jumped the curb, striking him from behind. Witnesses described a horrific scene, with Rogalle trapped under the vehicle, his internal organs exposed, until he was freed by emergency responders. He was reportedly awake and talking when he was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition. Rogalle died on Sunday. He was 58.

A resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, Rogalle reportedly worked for UPS for 39 years, 26 of them on the same route in the Financial District, where he was well-known and well-liked.

There were two adults and two small children in the SUV at the time of the crash, according to reports. The adult passenger, a man, was identified only as an FDNY inspector. The driver, an unidentified woman, was reportedly removed from the car by FDNY and placed on a backboard with a neck brace. All four people in the car were taken to New York Downtown Hospital, reports said.

Though all details point to a high-speed crash — it would be all but impossible to “lose control” of a vehicle, jump a curb, kill a pedestrian, injure yourself and your passengers while adhering to the city’s 30 mph speed limit — Downtown Express reports that NYPD found “no criminality.”

“How could you go fast here on these streets?” said a local to the Daily News. “There’s stop signs, there’s construction and congestion. Look at the height of that curb! How fast could she have been going?”

This fatal crash occurred in the 1st Precinct. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector Edward J. Winski, the commanding officer, head to the next precinct community council meeting. The 1st Precinct council meetings happen at 6:30 p.m. on the last Thursday of each month at the precinct, 16 Ericsson Place. The officer we spoke with could not immediately confirm if tonight’s meeting would take place as scheduled. Call the precinct at 212-334-0640 for information.

A 75-year-old woman was killed crossing Avenue S at E. 15th Street, shown here. Image: Google Street View

A driver struck and killed an elderly woman crossing the street in the Homecrest neighborhood of Brooklyn this morning, according to the NYPD.

The driver, a 36-year-old male, was turning left from E. 15th Street onto Avenue S when he hit a 75-year-old woman crossing north on Avenue S. She was declared dead on arrival at the New York Community Hospital. According to Sheepshead Bites, which first reported on the crash, the victim suffered from traumatic arrest, in which the heart stops beating after an impact to the chest.

Though it seems likely the victim had the right-of-way and the driver failed to yield, assuming both went on a green light instead of a red, the police say that “no criminality is suspected” in this case. ”It just appears to be an accident,” said an NYPD spokesperson.

Two years ago, the local community board argued against bringing DOT’s Safe Streets for Seniors program to an area starting one block south of this intersection. Safety improvements like longer crossing times and pedestrian refuge islands were derided as potentially getting in the way of drivers. This crash also took place across the street from a playground.

Less than two weeks ago, 13-year-old cyclist Henry Garcia was killed by a hit-and-run driver a mile and a half away from this intersection. Aaron Dudkin, an 80-year-old man, was killed by a 21-year-old driver just seven blocks away last December. Police did not file charges in that case either.

This fatal crash occurred in the 61st Precinct. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector Georgios Mastrokostas, the commanding officer, head to the next precinct community council meeting. The 61st Precinct council meetings happen at 7:30 p.m. on the second Wednesday of the month at 3093 Ocean Ave. Call the precinct at 718-627-6611 for information.

The DNAinfo story on the crash that injured multiple people in Midtown Saturday night is like the elementary school exercise that involved a sequence of sentences with one that didn’t belong.

Sorry, crash victims. For NYPD and city prosecutors, this isn't enough to make a case. Photo: DNAinfo

Nine people were hurt when a Jaguar sparked a chain reaction accident near Bryant Park Saturday night, authorities said.

According to police, the driver of the luxury car was traveling on West 42nd Street, near Sixth Avenue, when he rear-ended a Chevy Impala around 9 p.m.

Sources said that the car may have been speeding at the time of the smashup.

The impact sent the Impala careening into a taxi and the Jaguar flipped over, smashing into a group of people on the sidewalk, cops said.

Four pedestrians suffered a variety of injuries including a concussion. One refused medical attention, police said.

Four people in the Impala suffered non life-threatening injuries.

All of the victims were taken to Bellevue Hospital.

According to cops, there did not appear to be criminality.

In New York, however, the last line makes perfect sense. An NYPD spokesman told the Times that none of the victims was “likely to die,” meaning that, if police protocols were followed, the department’s Accident Investigation Squad did not investigate the crash. And since precinct cops normally will not charge a driver unless they personally witness an infraction — again, according to department policy — there is practically no chance that the person who crashed into another vehicle and flipped his car onto a sidewalk into a crowd of people will get as much as a moving violation.

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The NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating the death of a Brooklyn man who the department says was run down by officers in a police cruiser.

Tamon Robinson. Photo via Gothamist

Tamon Robinson, 27, was loading paving stones into an SUV at Bayview Houses in Canarsie on the morning of April 12 when, according to accounts, he was chased by officers who believed he was stealing the bricks. The Times reports:

Mr. Robinson ran toward his building, but a police car hit him before he reached it, according to a police report about the events, which took place around 5:30 a.m.

An autopsy on Friday determined the cause of death was an accident, the result of complications from blunt impact injuries to the head, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office said.

Friends and family say Robinson, who sold scrap building materials in addition to his job as a barista, had permission to take the pavers. Regardless, initial coverage parroted the NYPD narrative — Cops Bag Brick Bandit! — and did not question how or why a man on foot was struck by officers giving chase in a police car.

After the Times broke the news of the internal affairs probe last Friday, 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.”

“It’s crazy what the officers did to my son,” said Robinson’s mother, Laverne Dobbinson.  “[They] ran him over then beat him up afterwards.”

Hours after the incident, investigators were examining a police cruiser, which was oddly positioned in a walkway inside the complex and had a dent in the front driver’s side fender.

The driver who allegedly struck and killed pedestrian Victor Felix had a blood alcohol content over the legal limit for driving and showed signs of intoxication three hours after the crash, according to a court document.

Felix, 57, was crossing Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard near W. 146th Street in Harlem when he was struck at approximately 8:28 p.m. Sunday. The criminal court complaint says that Garry Kinloch, 48, was found by police “sitting on the curb next to an Acura MDX SUV … with front end damage including a dented front fender and broken front windshield,” with “an unconscious man … lying nearby in the street.”

A witness said Victor Felix was struck with such force that he was thrown 15 feet into the air. Photo: Post

The report says Kinloch told an officer: “I’m sorry. I had the green light. He just came out of nowhere. I didn’t see him.”

The Post quoted a witness who described the crash:

“All of the sudden, he just walked into the street,” said Richard Gomez, 29, a friend of the victim. “He didn’t wait for the light.”

Gomez said Felix was struck with so much force that “he went 15 feet straight up.”

At around 9:30 p.m., an NYPD Highway Patrol officer administered a portable breath test. Test results indicated that Kinloch had a blood alcohol content of .089, the complaint says. The legal limit for driving in New York State (not for walking, as many city reporters and editors seem to believe) is .08.

At approximately 11:27 p.m., a second officer administered a second breath test, which according to the complaint detected a blood alcohol content of .059 percent. The complaint says that at the time of the second test the administering officer “detected a slight odor of an alcoholic beverage on the defendant’s breath,” and that “the defendant at times appeared unsteady on his feet during coordination tests and at times failed to follow instructions during coordination tests.”

Kinloch, whom the Post identified as a maintenance worker for NYPD, was charged with DWI and driving while ability impaired. According to an online court database, his next court date is today. As of this writing Kinloch faces no charges for the death of Victor Felix.

Photo: Kimberly Kinchen

A cyclist was struck and injured by a driver at the intersection of Riverside and Broadway at Dyckman Street, in Inwood, Wednesday evening. The victim, a male in his 40s, was transported to Presbyterian Hospital in the Bronx, according to FDNY (the spokesperson was presumably referring to the Allen Pavilion on Broadway at W. 220th Street, in Inwood). His condition is unknown. The spokesperson said FDNY got the call at 6:01 p.m. Neither the NYPD public information office nor the 34th Precinct had any details.

Streetsblog reader Kimberly Kinchen (@BornAgainBikist) alerted us to the crash. She has this account:

It looks like a cyclist was hit at the stop sign where Riverside forks off to the right to southbound Broadway. The cyclist was apparently already in the ambulance; there was just one cop car parked on the sidewalk, and, while you can’t see him in this picture, the driver of the car was standing on the driver’s side looking pretty distraught when we walked up. I don’t know the condition of the cyclist, as we didn’t ask any questions. There was no blood, etc. on the street, and while I wasn’t looking for it, I didn’t see any indentations on the car’s hood, so I’m hoping the cyclist is not in too bad a shape.

As we have reported numerous times, this intersection is a mess — a confluence of drivers en route to and from the West Side Highway, the FDR and Inwood’s two toll-free bridges to the Bronx. While physical improvements are reportedly in the pipeline, area residents are bracing for the annual summer invasion of cruising boom-cars and motorcycles. A community-driven plan to calm Dyckman with a separated bike lane connecting the east- and west-side Greenways, a concept first proposed to DOT and Community Board 12 over four years ago, has gone nowhere.

If you know what happened here, or have information on the victim or his condition, please leave a comment or send us an email. See a wider shot of the scene after the jump.

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When it comes to deadly recklessness, drivers don’t need the New York Times to tell them to “Go for it,” as Charles McGrath did in last week’s paean to the urban supercar. After a stunningly violent weekend on city streets, the indulgent motoring fantasies of McGrath and his target audience appear all the more vacuous.

Henry Garcia was killed and Timothy Keith left brain dead by drivers in Brooklyn on Saturday. Henry's killer fled the scene. The driver who hit Timothy was not charged.

On Saturday morning, Gothamist reported that two pedestrians were critically injured by a hit-and-run driver at White Plains Road and Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx.

Then, at approximately 3:40 p.m. Saturday, Henry Garcia, 13, was riding his bike on 20th Avenue near 80th Street in Bensonhurst when he was hit by the driver of a green Ford SUV, according to the Post. Henry died Sunday at Coney Island Hospital. The driver remains at large.

Less than 90 minutes later, five-year-old Timothy Keith was struck by a cab driver while walking with his parents on Hicks Street in Cobble Hill. NYPD sources told the Daily News that Timothy ran into the street, and that the cab driver said he “couldn’t stop in time.” Yesterday it was reported that Timothy is brain dead. The driver was not charged. Timothy and his parents, all of whom are deaf, are from DC. They were on their first family trip to the city.

Deborah Munize, 59, was sitting at a bus stop at Montrose and Graham Avenues in Williamsburg at around 5:15 Sunday morning when she was hit by a curb-jumping livery cab driver. Munize was hospitalized in stable condition with leg injuries, according to the News. Driver Maximo Espinal later turned himself in and was charged with reckless driving and leaving the scene.

The Post reports that on Sunday at 8:30 p.m., Victor Felix, 57, was crossing Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard near W. 146th Street in Harlem when he was struck and killed by Garry Kinlock, a maintenance worker for NYPD. Kinlock was charged with DWI.

Based on published reports, to this point not one of the three drivers identified by authorities has been charged by NYPD, Charles Hynes or Cy Vance for taking a life or inflicting serious injury, though one left the scene and another was allegedly driving drunk.

Update: Streetsblog has queries in with the offices of district attorneys Hynes and Vance, respectively, regarding the crashes that injured Timothy Keith and Deborah Munize, and the suspected DWI death of Victor Felix.

A car crash this morning ended with one vehicle in the doorway of Brooklyn Heights restaurant Fatoosh. Photo: News 12

A two-car traffic crash on Hicks Street in Brooklyn Heights this morning ended with one of the vehicles plowing into the front door of Middle Eastern restaurant/pizza joint Fatoosh, as first reported by News 12.

Hicks is a one-way street with one traffic lane and one parking lane. Luckily, the restaurant was closed and no pedestrians were struck, according to a spokesperson for the Fire Department. The driver of the car that mounted the sidewalk suffered minor injuries, said the FDNY, and the other motorist did not sustain injuries. No structural damage was done to the building.

The NYPD press office did not have information about the circumstances of the crash, since no one was seriously injured.

This crash occurred in the 84th Precinct. To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector Mark DiPaolo, the commanding officer, head to the next precinct community council meeting. The 84th Precinct council meetings happen at 7 p.m. on the third Tuesday of the month, at various locations. Call the precinct at 718-875-6811 for information.