Motorists killed people walking in Brooklyn and Staten Island over the weekend. Both drivers fled the scene. One remains at large.
Jose Cardoso was on the sidewalk near 160 21st Street in Greenwood Heights, outside the construction business where he worked, at around 8 p.m. Saturday when co-worker Leonel Ortega-Flores hit him with a company van while trying to park, according to the Daily News and Staten Island Advance.
Cardoso, a 32-year-old Staten Island resident with two young children, was crushed against a building. He was pronounced dead at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.
Ortega-Flores, 35, fled the scene on foot and was arrested hours later. He was charged with manslaughter, felony leaving the scene, drunk driving, and driving without a license, according to court records.
“Every Saturday they [workers] like to drink,” a witness told the News. ”They were drunk and trying to put the vans inside the building.”
Cardoso and his wife, Guillermina Alonzo-Herrare, migrated to the U.S. from Mexico, the Advance reported. Their daughters are 2 and 6 years old.
"Right now I have no head to think about it, but I know I have to be strong," Alonzo-Herrare told the Advance. "Now I have to be two -- a mom and a dad -- and I am going to do the best to make him proud."
Ortega-Flores, of the Bronx, was held in jail on $10,000 bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for Friday.
At approximately 9:49 p.m. Friday, a driver in a dark-colored SUV struck Heriberta Ramirez, 42, as she stood on a pedestrian island on Bay Street at Grand Street in Tompkinsville.
NYPD told the Advance the driver was speeding and passing another vehicle when the collision occurred. Ramirez was catapulted 100 feet and landed under a parked car. The motorist did not stop to summon help or render aid.
"I heard a bang and I heard a woman scream," a local resident told the Advance. "I believe the neighborhood I live in has become unsafe and dangerous to even cross the street."
Bay Street has a painted median and a concrete center island where Ramirez was struck -- it’s unclear where exactly the victim was standing -- but with two lanes for driving in each direction and sharrows in lieu of bike lanes, it’s still inhospitable to people crossing on foot.
Ramirez lived in Stapleton. NYPD has released an image of the SUV, whose driver has not been caught or identified.
