On Friday morning, a traffic enforcement agent driving a marked NYPD vehicle struck and killed the Reverend Theauther Love, 87, as he was walking across Eastern Parkway in Brownsville. Police failed to notify the victim's family this weekend, according to friends and relatives. But NYPD did issue their standard exculpatory response when the driver in a fatal crash is sober and stays at the scene -- "no criminality is suspected" -- even though they have yet to disclose details like the driver's speed and who had the right of way at the time of the collision.
Love, a WWII vet, walked several miles a day in the neighborhood. His widow, Annie Love, told the Post that he was struck during his regular morning walk after taking out the trash. His son Andrew is calling for police to investigate whether the driver was speeding at the time.
NYPD's public information office told Streetsblog this morning that the TEA was driving westbound on Eastern Parkway between Bergen and Dean when he struck Love, who was walking north to south across Eastern Parkway. No charges are pending against the driver. The police spokesman had no further information about the collision, other than that the investigation is open.
The police's preliminary finding of "no criminality" clearly covers only a narrow range of driver culpability -- he didn't intentionally run down the victim, he wasn't intoxicated, and he stayed at the scene. But this glosses over a range of other possible factors that may have contributed to the crash that killed Theauther Love. Was the driver careless or reckless behind the wheel? Was he speeding, texting, or running a light? We don't know. Perhaps the investigation will clear up those questions, but judging from the overall pattern of police withholding information about specific traffic crashes, NYPD won't disclose the answers willingly.
