An 8-year-old boy was killed, and his 10-year-old brother was injured when a driver ran them over in Queens on Wednesday afternoon.
According to police, the boys were walking with their mother at around 4:15 p.m. and were crossing 100th Street when they were struck by 52-year-old Jose Barcia as he turned left in his pickup truck from 31st Avenue in East Elmhurst.
NYPD Chief of Transportation Philip Rivera told reporters at a press conference at the scene that Barcia rushed his left turn in an attempt to beat oncoming traffic on the two-way 31st Avenue.
“[He] made the turn quickly,” Rivera said. “Too quickly.”
Barcia was hit with a top count of criminally negligent homicide, a felony that carries a maximum of four years in prison, plus two counts of failure to yield and failure to exercise due care, and one count of speeding.
The 8-year-old, who was later identified by advocates as Bayron Palomino Arroyo, died at the scene. His brother was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens Hospital in stable condition. Barcia remained on the scene, cops said.
State Sen. Jessica Ramos called for more pedestrian safety efforts and for the state legislature to pass "Sammy's Law," which would allow the city to set its own speed limits.
“We are a city, not a suburb," she said in a statement issued on Thursday. "I implore drivers to move through my community with that in mind. I fight so hard for improved public transit because there are too many cars on the road, particularly SUVs and pickup trucks that do not allow for full visibility in city streets. ... I understand some people must drive for work or because they live with a disability. But if you do not need to drive, please don’t.”
The two-way 31st Avenue is a dangerous road used as a shortcut between Astoria Boulevard and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Last year, there were 74 reported crashes, which injured 47 people.
By comparison, along roughly the same length of two-way 34th Avenue, which was converted into a mostly car-free roadway from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, there were 31 reported crashes that injured just 17 people, according to city stats.
News of the death of an 8-year-old came just hours after Streetsblog reported that a pedestrian was killed by a truck driver making an illegal turn in Middle Village.
According to the NYPD, injuries from crashes are up almost 7 percent so far this year, compared to last year. Between Jan. 1 and March 10, 9,172 people have been injured in crashes, up from 8.585 in the same period last year. That's roughly 131 people injured every single day.
Total road fatalities are also up 20 percent so far this year, with 48 people killed so far, police said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story had the age of the injured brother wrong, owing to bad preliminary information provided by the NYPD.
