THE BRONX, New York, N.Y. — New York City Police officers are doggedly searching for the driver of a car and the suspect car that ran down a pedestrian in The Bronx Tuesday and took off from the scene. Officers responding to the pedestrian accident scene around 1:30 a.m. found a 51-year-old man down in […]
THE BRONX, New York, N.Y. — New York City Police officers are doggedly searching for the driver of a car and the suspect car that ran down a pedestrian in The Bronx Tuesday and took off from the scene. Officers responding to the pedestrian accident scene around 1:30 a.m. found a 51-year-old man down in the crosswalk at the intersection of East Tremont Avenue and Prospect Avenue. Witnesses said that the car was speeding when it hit the man and then fled from the scene, according to a report appearing on WCBS880.Radio.com. EMS raced the badly wounded pedestrian to Saint Barnabas Hospital, where the attending physicians produced him deceased. The reporting police officers said that the man sustained severe trauma over his body. Police are still searching for the driver of the fleeing vehicle.
Buzzfeed reported that witnesses were awoken by the sound of the speeding car slamming into the pedestrian’s body. The collision was so loud that a sleeping neighbor woke up and ran to the street to identify the source of the noise. That individual called 9-1-1.
Officers will continue to canvass the area looking for witnesses and debris from the crash. Investigators will also search for surveillance video from cameras posted in the area with the expectation that video captured the suspect vehicle. The investigation remains active at this time.
An astounding number of hit-and-run accidents happen annually in New York City, according to CityLimits.org. The number of hit-and-run crashes in the Five Boroughs rose by 26 percent from 2013 to 2017. The vast majority of hit-and-run accidents involve property damage only. However, in 2017, over 5,000 hit-and-run crashes resulted in injury or death in New York City.
The number of arrests made in hit-and-run crashes is ridiculously low. NYPD solves only one percent of all hit-and-run crashes. Most of the solved hit-and-run crashes involve property damage. Hit-and-run crashes involved injury or death are solved at a higher rate, but the vast majority remain unsolved.