By Daniel Katzive
The driver involved in a fatal pedestrian crash on Riverside Boulevard last October has been charged in the incident, according to police.
The NYPD said Thursday that, pursuant to an ongoing investigation, Mohammad Malik, a 64-year old Staten Island resident, had been arrested and charged with “failure to yield to a pedestrian.”
According to police, Malik was driving a 2019 Cadillac Escalade SUV southbound on Riverside Boulevard at 4:12 pm on October 26, 2023, when he struck an elderly man and woman crossing westbound at West 70th Street. The intersection is protected by a stop sign and a crosswalk. Malik stayed at the scene.
Both the man and woman were brought to the hospital, but the man, Leonard Sugin, aged 89 and a resident of 201 West 70th Street, died several weeks later, on November 23 at New York Presbyterian Weill Medical Center, of injuries sustained in the crash, according to police.
The October crash was the first fatal pedestrian incident in the 20th Precinct since 2021.
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So sad. And likely preventable. The number of double-parked cars on this street is so dangerous.
So sad. What a horrible way to die.
Is there any sense of how fast he was going? Not that it really matters, but just curious.
Also, doing the math, if he was headed southbound and they were heading west bound, they were likely pretty much in the middle of the street or had been in the street – if they were heading eastbound and he was heading southbound, then there is the possibility that they stepped out into the street in front of the car. But that is not the case here. Again, doesn’t matter since it is a crosswalk with a stop sign and there is no excuse for him not stopping and seeing them, but I thought this was interesting to highlight.
Also note that it was 4:12 pm. Not the middle of the night.
I am surprised this is the first road fatality since 2021.
I’ve seen many close calls, including walking walking myself and a few cars.
The speed limit should drop to 15 MPH on this road.
I don’t think it takes much speed to kill somebody with a Cadillac, especially an elderly person.
Do you drive on Riverside Blvd near 70th? As Adam says in the first comment there are always double parked vehicles –cabs and Ubers and UPS trucks — in the yellow striped median. It is quite possible that a double parked vehicle blocked the drivers view of the pedestrians. Not that I’m excusing him. Just pointing out that the situation may have been much closer to what you think would have been the case if the pedestrians were going eastbound.
There’s a stop sign every 200 feet. If you obey the law you cannot miss seeing a pedestrian, let alone an elderly couple. Among other reasons is the fact that you can’t achieve enough speed to make a collision unavoidable.
Nope. There’s a stop sign at 70th. The next one going south is at 68th. That’s over 500 feet.
Part of the problem is also that when you are driving a massive truck or SUV such as a Cadillac Escalade it doesn’t take a lot of speed to deliver a fatal hit to a pedestrian
Very sad. That stretch of Riverside Blvd., including that intersection, is a wild mess. There’s often many cars and trucks double parked, and it makes it harder to see pedestrians popping out from behind the cars. Doesn’t excuse the driver for not stopping…but unfortunately it’s not surprising to see.
This intersection needs a traffic light because w70 is a wide 2 way street with competing traffic from 3 directions . There are so few STOP signs in Manhattan for traffic going straight so it’s not effective for traffic calming. When the tree leaves fill in a couple of months, I never expect southbound drivers to stop at 69th, 68, 67… etc.
But yeh, a slap on the wrist is not enough for ending someone’s life. But American car culture has normalized this collateral damage a long long time ago.
This will continue until punishment will fit the crime. This is murder, pure and simple, and should be punished as such.
Many years ago I put together a prosecution for a vehicular homicide. The rules haven’t changed since so I know what this takes. You need a high level of recklessness as defined by court precedent and “simply” running a stop sign or failing to yield doesn’t do it.
The only way around this is legislation at the state level (the city can’t write criminal laws).
The subject of vehicular deaths is one where there’s great variance state by state, in NJ if you kill someone while you’re texting you can get 10 years and in NY? 30 days. We need legislative reform.
exactly. failure to yield is what they need to be charging all day everday when people are not killed. but they never charge anyone unless someone actually dies.
So you’re thinking this was intentional? What have you read about this incident that leads you to believe this? Everything I’ve seen makes me think it was reckless or negligent behavior that led to this tragedy.
What about mopeds “failing to stop” at every red light on Central Park West? B Breaking the law is perfectly acceptable in NYC. If you don’t enforce you get more, smoking front of schools and in parks, dog poop everywhere, phone snatchers and shoplifters.
Running through a stop sign is intentional. A human being is dead, and people will continue to be killed until there are consequences for murder. If you want to stop murder, you punish it.
Intentionally running through a stop sign is not the same as intentionally planning to kill someone. Murder requires the latter intent. Your faulty logic attaches the wrong intent to the resulting death.
So charge them with 2nd degree manslaughter.
Or negligent homicide.
So in other words… nothing will happen to him except for a desk appearance ticket & points on his license if he even has one.
I simply do not understand why drivers are allowed to kill people with no consequences. This driver broke the law, did not stop at a stop sign, did not respect the crosswalk, and killed someone — and there is no consequence beyond a $150 traffic ticket. A while back a traffic analyst was being interviewed on WNYC, and he said, “If you want to get away with murder, use a car.” As long as you are in a car, the police will simply shrug their shoulders and call it an unavoidable accident.
I no longer trust any car to stop. It’s ridiculous that these drivers do not slow down and try to cut off pedestrians who are already crossing the street on their green light. What is the rush these drivers are in that they have no respect for anyone? I agree with all those who say if you hit or kill someone who has the green light, you go to prison for it.
Agreed. Many drivers totally ignore crosswalks or arrogantly think they have the right of way. I got into a shouting match recently when I put up my hand at an approaching vehicle as I was crossing a crosswalk on Manhattan Avenue, only to be screamed at by the passenger to get out of the way. [expletives omitted]
This is what non-enforcement of basic traffic laws by the NYPD leads to.
Good to see an actual photo of RSB this time, not the photo of RSD that ran with the initial reporting.
Will there be a CB7 transportation committee discussion about redesigning this intersection so this doesn’t happen again? Isn’t that the entire point of Vision Zero?
The entire point of Vision Zero is to incrementally ban cars.
Very sad.
My great uncle 86 passed after being hit by a vehicle in the Bronx.
A neighbor 88 was hit by a bicyclist – she suffered a broken hip and other injuries and will never walk again.
An acquaintance was hit by a Citibiker and in rehab for 2 months.
Dangerous streets – especially for elderly
Bicyclist caused deaths are simply “quality of life issues” according to NYPD policy.
Really.
This is shocking since the intersection is protected by a crosswalk and a stop sign.
This was an accident waiting to happen. People drive recklessly on Riverside Blvd. The police need to monitor it.
There is no question that Riverside Blvd. was poorly designed, with only one lane for traffic in each direction; northbound traffic is constantly required to use the median to avoid double-parked cars. They should ban all parking against the curb in the northbound direction and assign an agent to the entire stretch of Riverside Blvd. to ticket violators. They’d make a fortune.
Cars will either run you over or choke you with pollution. Time to ban them from Manhattan.
I live at 70th and RSB and the stop signs are treated by many of the drivers as simply a suggestion, not a requirement. Frankly, it is amazing that more have not been run over. I suspect WAZE is directing drivers off of the Westside Highway and up RSB & RSD. There is a lot of non local through traffic blasting through the neighborhood.
I also see a number of Uber/Lyft/rideshare drivers idling along RSB, particularly in the evenings. I suspect it is a convenient place for them to sit and hover, waiting for app hails from the UWS, Columbus Circle and HK areas. At night, some of the drivers will take “pit stops” there, too — either leaving behind full bottles of urine on the sidewalk or getting out and going along the dimly-lit green construction netting.
App and private car service drivers break the idling rules everywhere to sit looking at their phones. One was sitting at the hydrant on my block looking at porn and masturbating. For like an hour. That’s NYC now.
Just as in the suburbs, a stop sign means you stop. Then you look left, right, left. Then you proceed slowly, knowing that people might be going to the PARK. JFC!
Sad enough, but his companion had to witness this. So sorry for her loss!
Wait a minute. Failure to yield?! I’m out of words now.