A four-year-old girl walking with her grandmother was killed on Tuesday morning after an SUV hopped a curb at 97th street and Amsterdam Avenue, slammed into a building and then apparently backed over them. The SUV driver was fleeing police when he crashed into the girl and her 55-year-old grandmother, the Daily News reported. The girl was identified as Ariel Russo and her grandmother is Katia Gutierrez.
Russo was transported to St. Luke’s Hospital but could not be saved. Her grandmother is expected to survive.
The Post says the man responsible has been apprehended:
“Cops initially pulled over Franklin Reyes, 18, on 86th and Amsterdam Avenue around 8:15 a.m., law-enforcement sources said.
When police approached the car, Reyes allegedly took off — leading cops on a pursuit up to 97th Street, where he took a hard left and plowed into the window of Asian Fusion Cuisine, according to authorities and witnesses.”
In general, the NYPD is not supposed to pursue chases that could result in pedestrian or officer injury. A film editor named Karen Schmeer was killed on 90th and Broadway in 2010 after a police chase, and the NYPD said afterwards that chases should be very limited. As Streetsblog reported at the time:
“The NYPD is no longer denying its involvement — or error — in the January 29 car chase that ended with the death of Karen Schmeer on the Upper West Side. At a meeting of the 24th Precinct’s community council, Deputy Inspector Kathleen O’Reilly laid out the police’s official line: that an officer improperly started a chase and that his supervisor, according to policy, called it off.”
Here’s what we originally published on today’s crash, based on tips and news sources:
At least two people were hit by a car and injured Tuesday morning around 8:15 on 97th street and Amsterdam Avenue. One of the victims, a 3-year-old child, was transported to St. Luke’s Hospital in serious condition, ABC News reported. CBS is reporting that the child is a girl.
Update: The Post says the driver was fleeing the police.
A teen driving a black Nissan Frontier plowed into a 3-year-old girl and her mom about 8:20 a.m. in front of a restaurant on 97th Street and Amsterdam Avenue while trying to escape the cops, sources and witnesses said.
“He sped up to get away from the police — that’s when he hit the lady and the child,” said one witness.
The child was unconscious and covered in glass from the window of Asian Fusion Cuisine, said one bystander. The mother was semi-conscious and also bloody.
“Eyewitnesses tell NY1 a mother and child were crossing the street when they were hit by the vehicle,” reports NY1.
A reader tells us parents at nearby PS 163 say the incident may have been related to a police chase, but that hasn’t been confirmed.
Aerial photos of the scene are here.
We will update this story as we learn more.
According to ABC it was the child’s grandmother and not mother.
According to me… This kid should be stoned.
He probably was.