Cops Collar Driver Who Killed Heroic Nanny — But the Charge is Merely ‘Failure to Yield’
Police say they’ve charged the driver who ran over and killed a Brooklyn nanny who pushed her young charge to safety in the nick of time — but the charges don’t match the outrage that the crash provoked.
Mamadou Bathily, 70, was charged with failure to yield and failure to exercise due care in the Dec. 20, 2021 crash on Fifth Avenue and Union Street in Park Slope, where cops say the Dodge Ram pickup truck driver struck Arcellie Muschamp as she crossed in a crosswalk. Witnesses said that the driver was speeding, and Muschamp, sensing that he was not going to stop, pushed from harm’s way the stroller carrying 1-year-old Rowan Duhaime.
Muschamp, 52, was struck and died several days later. The driver remained at the scene. It took nearly two years for the NYPD to make the arrest, which it did on Wednesday afternoon, cops said.
Police declined to provide any other details.
Failure to yield and failure to exercise due care rarely lead to any jail time. The state Department of Motor Vehicles, which can suspend or revoke a driver’s license after any fatal crash, has not held a hearing yet on the Bathily case. The agency sometimes waits until criminal proceedings are completed, though the agency sometimes does not take any action against killer drivers.
After the death of Muschamp, the Department of Transportation did not make any substantial safety improvements at the dangerous intersection except to add a small plastic bump to encourage drivers to make wider turns.
In just the first 11 months of this year, there have been 123 reported crashes on just the one-and-a-half miles of Fifth Avenue between Flatbush Avenue and the Prospect Expressway, according to city statistics. Those crashes injured 28 cyclists, 11 pedestrians and 24 motorists. Since January 2021, there have been 402 reported crashes, injuring a stunning 173 people, including 68 cyclists and 41 pedestrians.
This story will be updated.
