An out-of-control driver mounted the sidewalk and ran over a 10-year-old boy waiting at a bus stop in Midwood on Tuesday, killing him, police said.
Cops say the 59-year-old driver was heading north on Ocean Avenue when he “veered to the right,” hopped the curb, and fatally struck the little boy, Enzo Farachio, who was standing on the sidewalk near Avenue L at about 2:45 p.m.
The driver, behind the wheel of a grey Lexus SUV, then plowed into an Ocean Avenue building, causing the scaffolding to come crashing down.
Paramedics rushed Farachio to New York Community Hospital, where he died.
“All they gave us was a tissue to wipe our tears.”
— Chaim Deutsch (@ChaimDeutsch) September 11, 2019
That’s what the father of 10 year old Enzo Farachio told me, hours after his son was killed today in a tragic accident on Ocean Ave.
It shouldn’t take a Councilman showing up at their home to get answers for a grieving family.
Police say a 9-year-old girl old, who was also a passenger in the car during the time of the fatal crash, was taken to Kings County Hospital with injuries to her pelvis and arm. Paramedics transported the driver to Kings County Hospital with head injuries, according to ABC news.
Police did not make any arrests or issue any tickets — cops could not answer questions about whether the driver was speeding or distracted, but told Bklyner that he "possibly suffered a medical episode."
cop just told me, "we believe the driver had a medical condition prior to the crash. i wouldn't know what medical condition though." https://t.co/ag8uCwKHMh
— zainab iqbal (@planetzainab) September 11, 2019
But the driver's totaled car and broken scaffolding suggests he may have been going above Ocean Avenue’s 25 miles-per-hour speed limit — and the car he was driving had racked up four school zone speed camera violations, according to reporters at the scene, who ran his plates through HowsMyDriving.
the vehicle involved in the death of a 10-year-old has gotten FOUR school zone speed camera violations https://t.co/auwr8OxYVl
— zainab iqbal (@planetzainab) September 11, 2019
Ocean Avenue is a four-lane road devoted entirely to motor vehicles. Three pedestrians and 12 motorists have been injured in 15 crashes the area surrounding the Avenue L intersection since 2017.
The 10-year-old boy is at least the 150th person killed on the streets of New York City this year — which is a 17 percent increase from 2018, according to the Department of Transportation.
The executive director of Transportation Alternatives, Danny Harris, sent the boy's family the "deepest condolences" of the "entire Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets community."
"This tragedy is testament to the fact that there is virtually no place in the city where residents are safe from the onslaught of cars — not in the crosswalk, not in the bike lane, not even on the sidewalk," Harris said in a statement. "Crashes like these are not accidents, but the preventable and predictable result of a city where cars, not people, are the priority. As a result, children like this 10-year-old boy and hundreds of others pay the price with their lives each and every year."
This story was updated to reflect Harris's statement.
