WHY WE FIGHT

Bill Weinberg

From Gothamist, March 4:

Baby Whose Parents Were Killed
in Williamsburg Hit-And-Run Has Died

The infant who was delivered prematurely after his parents were killed in a Williamsburg hit-and-run has died, according to Orthodox community leader Isaac Abraham. The child had been listed in stable condition after being delivered in the wake of the crash that killed parents Nathan and Raizy Glauber, both 21. But Abraham now says the child has died. Regarding the driver who fled the horrific scene, Abraham tells the Times, “This guy’s a coward and he should pay his price.”

Raizy Glauber, seven months pregnant, was not feeling well on Saturday and was being taken to the hospital by a livery cab driver shortly after midnight when the cab was struck by a grey 2010 BMW at the intersection of Kent Avenue and Wilson Street. The Times reports that “the engine of the livery car ended up in the backseat, where Raizy Glauber, who was seven months pregnant, was sitting before she was ejected, Abraham said. Her body landed under a parked tractor-trailer, said witnesses who raced to the scene after the crash. Nachman Glauber was pinned in the car, and emergency workers had to cut off the roof to get him out.”

The baby was delivered by cesarean section and weighed just four pounds. The livery cab driver was treated for minor injuries and released, while the driver of the BMW and an unidentified passenger both fled the scene on foot. It’s unclear if Nunez came to a full stop at the intersection before turning onto Kent, a main thoroughfare without many stop lights. “I don’t remember anything,” the cab driver, Pedro Nunez, tells the Daily News. Takia Walk, the registered owner of the BMW, who was not in the car, was arrested yesterday and charged with insurance fraud, the Times reports.

“God is punishing me for my sins by taking away my daughter,” Raizy Glauber’s father, Yitzchak Silberstein, said in Yiddish at the couple’s funeral Sunday afternoon, according to the News. “Nobody knows how this could happen.” Abraham says the newborn’s body will be named, circumcised and buried with the parents.

Oh please stop, Yitzchak. God is not punishing you for your sins. And we know exactly how this could happen. The pathological car culture. Every day, we see ads on TV featuring cars zooming at breakneck speed as a symbol of freedom and power, and chase scenes in action movies with carnage presented as entertainment. And then we’re supposed to be shocked when stuff like this happens in real life?

Think!

See more reasons WHY WE FIGHT.
 

  1. Justice in Williamsburg “accident”?
    Absolutely amazing. AP reports that the driver in the above the incident has actually been carged with “vehicular manslaughter”—and held without bail.

    How could this happen? Because an unborn baby was killed?

  2. WHY WE FIGHT
    When, when, when, when will we say “enough is enough”? If we can ban assault rifles why on Earth can’t we ban cars? From Gothamist, March 5:

    According to the NYPD, the cop car that killed 24-year-old Japanese student Ryo Oyamada in Queens last month had its “emergency lights activated” at the time of impact. But at least one witness says he saw neither flashing lights nor heard a siren activated on the patrol car before it slammed into Oyamada, and that the NYPD bears far more responsibility for the fatal crash than Oyamada’s distraught family has been led to believe.

    Chuck Johnson, who works at Queensbridge sports lounge PDG Variety Store, tells us he saw Oyamada leaving a neighboring deli at 40th Street and 10th Ave, right before he was hit by the patrol car. “He came out of the store and by the time I turned back around… he was on the ground dead in 35, 40 seconds,” Johnson told us. And though the police report states that the patrol car in question had its “emergency lights activated” at the time of the accident, Johnson insists that wasn’t the case. “They never had sirens on,” Johnson said. “They didn’t put sirens on until two more patrol cars put on their sirens. There were no overhead lights on, none.”

    Johnson thinks the car was traveling upwards of 70 miles per hour, and he tells us it’s common to see cop cruisers speeding in his neighborhood. “We’ve been talking about these officers, they’re the same officers that race around the neighborhood in their police car,” Johnson told us. “The speed this guy was going, you can get to the same spot at 30 miles an hour. Why do you have to be going 70 miles an hour in a residential neighborhood?”
     

  3. WHY WE FIGHT
    From the New York Post, April 1:

    Mother in coma doesn’t know son is brain-dead after traffic accident in Brooklyn
    A 2-year-old boy hurt when a car jumped a Brooklyn sidewalk is likely brain-dead — and his mother doesn’t even know, relatives said yesterday.

    Wendy McLein, 37, was in a semicoma at Kings County Hospital, according to family members, who said her son, Denim, was brain-dead.

    They were injured with 10 others when a car wiped them out at an East Flatbush bus stop Saturday evening.

    Cops said the driver passed a breath-alcohol test and would not be charged.

    She told investigators that her brakes failed before she plowed through a red light and jumped the sidewalk at Church and Utica avenues at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

    Little Denim’s aunt, Dierdra McCorkle, 51, wailed and fell to the floor when she got the news about her nephew.

    “I’m devastated,” she said yesterday. “Why couldn’t God take me and let him live his life longer?”

    McCorkle described Denim as a “bright kid” who learned quickly and loved to eat. She said the mom will be devastated when she learns the news.

    “This is going to kill her,” McCorkle said. “Oh, my God.”

    Once again, the grief of the survivors is presented merely as deconextualized pornography. When will it be recognized that this kind of journalism is mere exploitation, and that these casualties are victims of a political system, not of “accidents”?

  4. No, you are not safe in the crosswalk
    From the New York Times, April 2:

    Pedestrians struck by cars are most often hit while in the crosswalk, with the signal on their side.

    Taxicabs pose a disproportionate threat to cyclists, who often compete for the same sliver of curbside roadway….

    These are among the findings of a medical study of injured pedestrians and cyclists in the city, conducted by a team of trauma surgeons, emergency physicians and researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center.

    From December 2008 to June 2011, the group studied more than 1,400 pedestrians and cyclists treated at Bellevue Hospital Center after collisions. Most occurred in Manhattan and western Brooklyn, stretching along the busiest corridors of a city where street safety and traffic engineering have been trumpeted as defining legacies of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s tenure…

    One harrowing take-away from the report is that no area, it seems, can be entirely safe. Six percent of pedestrians were injured while on a sidewalk. Of those injured on the street, 44 percent used a crosswalk, with the signal, compared with 23 percent who crossed midblock and 9 percent who crossed against the signal.

  5. WHY WE FIGHT
    From the Daily Mail, May 30:

    Sunbather, 21, seriously injured after she is run over by a cop in pick-up truck as she slept on beach
    A 21-year-old woman who was sleeping on a beach is recovering after being run over by a police patrol car around 6pm on Tuesday night.

    Jessica Nystrom was left with tire marks across her body and was rushed to the hospital in a serious condition.

    The police officer who ran over her in his pick-up truck said he felt a ‘slight bump’ and heard a woman swear.

    Florida Highway Patrol investigators found Deputy Chad Biernacki was at fault in the accident on Miramar Beach, near Panama City.

    The 30-year-old could face disciplinary action for the accident.

    Officials said Biernacki was patrolling the beach when he came across a group of underage drinkers and issued them notices to appear in court.

    After ordering the teens to leave he drove off – but did not see Nystrom asleep on the beach.

    A report into the accident said he drove forward, turned right to make a U-turn and his right front tire rolled over the right side of Nystrom’s body.

    Biernacki told sheriff’s investigators he felt ‘a slight bump’ and heard a woman curse.

    Amazing that she hasn’t been charged with disorderly conduct for using foul language in public. The report says Nystrom had not been drinking. No word on whether Biernacki will face charges or even disciplinary measures.

  6. WHY WE FIGHT
    From NBC New York, June 1:

    Man in Wheelchair Hit, Dragged by Garbage Truck in SoHo
    A man crossing a SoHo street in a wheelchair was hit by a garbage truck, knocked out of his chair and dragged Friday morning.

    He was in stable condition at the hospital, officials said.

    The 66-year-old man was crossing West Broadway at Spring Street when he was struck.

    Authorities say the truck was stopped at a red light and began to move when the light turned green. The driver may not have seen the man.

    Rescuers worked for several minutes to free the man from beneath the truck.

    Police said no charges would be filed.

    Of course not.

  7. WHY WE FIGHT
    From AP, June 4:

    Ariel Russo, 4, killed by car on Manhattan’s Upper West Side
    NEW YORK — A 4-year-old girl was killed and her grandmother injured when they were struck by a teenager driving his parent’s SUV without a license on Manhattan’s busy Upper West Side on Tuesday morning, authorities said.

    The accident happened at 8:15 a.m., at West 97th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. A black SUV slammed into a restaurant on the ground floor of an apartment building, pinning Ariel Russo and her 58-year-old grandmother Katie Gutierrez against a gate, police said. As the vehicle reversed, the driver may have struck them again, police said.

    The driver was believed to be going about 34 mph at the time of the crash, police said. The speed limit on New York City streets is 30 mph. The child was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The grandmother is in stable condition.

    Police said the SUV, a Nissan Frontier, was stopped by officers about 10 blocks south when officers noticed reckless driving and wide turns from far lanes… Police said the 17-year-old driver, Franklin Reyes, was arrested on charges of manslaughter and vehicular manslaughter and was hospitalized after complaining of difficulty breathing.

    And from CBSLA, April 17:

    3 Injured After SUV Crashes Into Fast-Food Restaurant
    SANTA ANA — A family of three were injured Wednesday after an SUV crashed into a fast-food restaurant in Orange County.

    The driver of a white Ford Expedition was attempting to get behind a school bus when he lost control and scrapped the back of the bus around 12:30 p.m. The SUV, going about 10 mph, then jumped a curb and slammed into the Big K’s Burgers restaurant at 1320 W. First St., officials said.

    A man and woman in their 30s and their 5-year-old daughter were sitting at a table when the vehicle crashed into the building. The man was trapped under the SUV, while the woman and her daughter were thrown and struck by debris. All three were transported to a local hospital in stable condition.

    When, when, when, WHEN will we put an end to this?

    For all the talk about banning guns, why is there no talk of banning cars? Why?

    1. Posthumous justice for Ariel Russo?

      From the Staten Island Advance, Dec. 17:

      Mayor Bloomberg signs law to change 911 response times after girl's death

      CITY HALL — Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed 16 bills into law Tuesday, including legislation to reform how the city measures emergency response time.

      That legislation is named for Ariel Russo, a 4-year-old girl who was killed when she was struck by a driver fleeing police as she was on her way to pre-school. Her death — and the eight minutes it took for an ambulance to respond — led to City Council hearings investigating the city's new, $1 billion over-budget 911 system.

      The new law will require response times to be measured from the time the phone call is made, rather than from the time it is transferred to the correct dispatcher.

      Ariel's parents attended the Council hearings, as well as a meeting last week when the Council passed the bill and Tuesday's signing.

  8. WHY WE FIGHT
    More jaundiced reporting in which it is assumed the problem is the that the driver was high on drugs rather than that he was behind the wheel of an automobile. From WNYC, June 18:

    Man Arrested After Car Jumped Curb in East Village
    A Queens man who was driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol was arrested after his car plowed onto an East Village sidewalk and injured eight people Wednesday morning, police said.

    Shaun Martin was behind the wheel when his car jumped a curb, smashed through a tree, a telephone booth, bicycles, a parking kiosk and a flower stand near 4th Street and Second Avenue, police said.

    Three pedestrians and one Citibike cyclist were among those injured.

    Miguel Lopez, who works at a diner a block away, says he heard what sounded like an explosion and rushed out of his restaurant.

    “I see the white car in the middle of the street, all bags down, the trees, the hydrant in the corner, two people hit by the car were on the floor, where the flowers and everything were,” he said.

    Another witness, Najava Stone, says people were hurt by flying debris. He says the car spun before landing in a crosswalk.

    The victims are being treated at Bellevue Hospital.

    1. More on East Village car-nage
      The Villager has further details about the Second Ave. incident. It seems the idiot at the wheel was actually in a drag race and going some 80 miles per hour—in the middle of New York fucking City. Most seriously hurt is Mohammed Akash Ali, 62, who staffed the flower stand outside the East Village Farm market on the corner. He is listed in serious condition at Bellevue Hospital.

      Man, does this make my blood boil. One block from where I live, this is my local neighborhood deli run by Indian immigrants, and Mohammed Akash Ali is someone I’ve known for more than 20 years… I never knew his name until I read it in The Villager, but every time I walked down to the 24-hour deli for a late-night seltzer he’d be out by the flower stand chopping mango for fruit salad. The salt of the earth.

      Whose life is worth more? Mohammed Akash Ali or this drag-racing sociopath playboy punk?

      I’m rooting for you, Mohammed.

    2. Fund to support Akkas Ali
      The EV Grieve blog informs us that local Community Board member Chad Marlow has launched an online campaign to raise momey for Akkas Ali (apparently the correct rendering of his name) via GiveForward. Marlow writes: “Ali has a wife and three sons, and they all need our support in this time of terrible tragedy.”

      This blogger made a donation there. But we object strongly to use of the word “tragedy,” which implies an act of God. This was not a “tragedy.” It was a crime.

    3. Akkas Ali emerged from coma
      Just dropped by East Village Farm Grocery and they told me that Akkas Ali has opened his eyes for the first time since the “accident.” He didn’t talk, but I’ll take what I can get. Thank you, Akkas. We are rooting for you. 

      The Villager has made note of this.

    4. False hope for Akkash Ali…
      At least this punk has been charged with vehicular assault. The news about Akkash Ali emerging from his coma has proved to be a false hope, alas. The last time I dropped by the store, they told me he had just briefly opened his eyes, then slipped back into unconsciousness. Not good. From NBC’s New York 4, July 30:

      An indictment charges a Queens man with driving while impaired by drugs when his car jumped a curb in the East Village and plowed through a block and a half of street signs, fire hydrants and bike racks before slamming into a bodgea, seriously injuring two deli workers.

      District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. says Shaun Martin, 32, also is charged with aggravated vehicular assault and criminal possession of a controlled substance.

      Authorities allege he was high on PCP and methamphetamine on the morning of June 19 when he cut across three lanes of traffic and drove onto the sidewalk.

      The car barreled down the sidewalk for about a block and a half before crashing into a flower stand attached to the deli and spinning out into the middle of the street.

      One of the injured workers suffered brain trauma. Both had broken bones.

      Police had said Martin reused a Breathalyzer test and has prior drunken driving arrests. Drugs were allegedly found stashed in his socks when he was treated at the hospital. 

    5. East Village raises $18,000 for Akkas Ali family
      The Villager runs an inspiring story Aug. 15 on the Internet campaign led by Chad Marlow, a member of Community Board 3, that has raised $18,000 for the family of Akkas Ali. Marlow handed the check to  Ali’s son Rukanul Islam, 22—the youngest of his five children. The account includes these poignant passages:

      Islam, who goes by the nickname “Rinku,” said his father is conscious, and will open his eyes if someone is in the room and talking to him. He can turn his head and point to people with his right arm, and can raise his right leg. But his left leg and ankle are injured, and he’s not moving that leg or his left arm, either.

      He is also intubated—periodically put on a ventilator to help him breathe—and because the tube crosses over his vocal chords, he cannot currently talk.

      In addition, as a result of brain injury suffered from the force of the impact, he has completely lost his memory, and currently doesn’t even recognize his own family members…

      Asked what he’d like to see happen to the driver who so severely harmed his dad, nearly killing him, Islam didn’t express a desire for extreme vengeance.

      “He’s in jail right now. But…,” he said, and paused, “…I don’t know if I have anything to say. He was drunk and driving. His mind was on drugs.”
       

    6. Murder charge in Akkas Ali death

      From The Villager, May 8:

      Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. on Tuesday announced that an intoxicated driver who crashed into a Second Ave. grocery store last June, injuring several employees, one of whom later died, has now also been charged with murder.

      Florist Mohammed Akkas Ali, who was in his early 60s, died earlier this year as a result of his injuries from the crash six months earlier.

      The driver, Shaun Martin, 33, now has been additionally charged in New York State Supreme Court, not only with murder in the second degree, but also two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide.

      Martin was initially slapped with seven charges, but that has now been boosted up to 15. He faces 25 years to life in jail.

      Other charges against him include assault in the first degree, aggravated vehicular assault, reckless endangerment in the first degree, driving while ability impaired by drugs, driving while ability impaired by combination of drugs and alcohol, assault in the third degree, and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree.

      "This defendant is charged with seriously injuring multiple pedestrians, killing Mr. Ali, due to his extraordinarily reckless behavior," Vance said in a press release on Tuesday.

      1. Conviction in Akkas Ali death

        From Gothamist, July 20:

        The driver who killed an East Village bodega worker in 2013 was convicted of murder by a judge today. Shaun Martin, 35, killed Mohammed Akkas Ali, 62, and injured two other workers at East Village Farm and Grocery Store when he careened into the East Village Farm at East Fourth Street and Second Avenue while drunk and high on meth and PCP.

        Judge Melissa Jackson convicted Martin of murder as well as aggravated vehicular homicide, assault, reckless endangerment, driving while high, driving drunk, and drug possession. Martin reportedly sobbed when Jackson began announcing the verdicts.

        "Shaun Martin turned a vehicle into a ‎murder weapon the morning he took the wheel while impaired by drugs,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said in a statement. "In doing so, he chose to endanger the lives of every New Yorker he encountered that day."

  9. Protest against auto-cracy… in the NY Post?!

    Of all places. Today's New York Post carries a very vindicating op-ed by one Nicole Gelinas of (again, of all places) the elitist Manhattan Institute. We don't necessarily endorse her proposed solutions, but the case she makes against the dominant pathology is spot-on. We take the liberty (cut us some slack, Murdoch) of reprinting it in full:

    Stop the killing
    . . . on the city’s deadly roads
    Sixteen-year-old Renee Thompson lived in one of New York’s most crime-plagued precincts — The Bronx’ Morris Heights, with five murders this year. But she died a gruesome death in one of the city’s safest neighborhoods — Manhattan’s Upper East Side — under the wheels of a big rig.

    Violent traffic deaths like Renee’s are not fateful accidents. They are preventable outrages. But will the mayoral candidates get outraged?

    After her shift at Dylan's Candy Bar on Wednesday night, Renee stepped into the crosswalk. The driver of a 19-wheeler turning right from 60th Street onto 3rd Avenue didn’t see her. "My little sister was hit by a truck tonight," her brother, Greg, wrote on Facebook. "She didn’t make it."

    Renee Thompson, 16, was killed by a truck in Midtown on Wednesday.
    Greg joins the families of 72 other pedestrians killed this year through June — and 148 all last year.

    Before Renee, three pedestrians died on the Upper East Side in 2013. If they’d been stabbed to death by strangers, the city would be up in arms.

    To his great credit, Mayor Bloomberg cares about traffic deaths — and has reduced them, from 193 the year before he took office. In all, the 23 percent reduction in yearly pedestrian deaths has saved 300 lives.

    He built on what Mayor Rudy Giuliani started: 1990 saw 284 pedestrians die.

    But as with other violence, it gets ever harder to keep reducing it. Where Giuliani focused on drunk driving, Bloomberg has focused more on the streets.

    The pedestrian plaza around Herald Square has drawn plenty of complaints. But during Christmas week 2001, a van crashed into the old Herald Square — then one of New York's most dangerous intersections — killing seven.

    After the mayor closed Broadway, pedestrian injuries there fell 53 percent. Injuries also fell on Eighth and Ninth avenues after the city installed bike lanes. (A bicyclist is as likely to kill you as your elevator is.)

    The intersection where Renee died is still just an open road — no islands or other safe havens for pedestrians. The city's priority for this intersection "isn't allowing pedestrians to cross safely — it's moving large volumes of vehicle traffic quickly," says Juan Martinez of the street-safety group Transportation Alternatives.

    Still, Bloomberg also should do more of what Giuliani did — focus on people (speed cameras, just approved by Albany at the mayor’s request, will help).

    The driver whose truck killed Renee, Henry Panama, brought a deadly weapon onto dense streets. Yet he hadn't registered the vehicle. Nor did he yield or "exercise due care," according to police. His truck looks to be missing a right-side mirror, too — a device that helps keep pedestrians alive.

    For that, he gets tickets.

    Yet bringing a truck into the city that is unsafe by definition (the driver can't see), then hitting someone, should be criminal reckless endangerment with serious prison time, at least.

    Bloomberg also ought to direct the police to enforce smaller traffic crimes before they cause deaths. Thursday morning, not 12 hours after Renee died, 34 cars and seven big rigs ran the intersection’s two red lights over just 15 minutes.

    By not enforcing the law, the city is allowing deadly behavior. In the precinct, police have given out 27 percent fewer tickets for dangerous driving this year than last.

    There are other ways of preventing fatal crashes. Sam Schwartz, the city's Koch-era traffic commissioner, says the City Council should pass a law requiring rear-wheel guards on trucks — so when a person is hit, she's thrown, not run over.

    And the city's tech whizzes should think about motion or contact sensors for trucks. Greg, Renee’s brother, says his girlfriend "is actually working on that" at the University of Arizona — that is, "working on making cars [and trucks] smarter to prevent things just like this. . . It’s a shame my sister couldn't reap the benefits of a world full of extremely smart technology."

    Whose lives would this save?

    Elderly people and children, mostly. In Manhattan, the elderly make up 18.7 percent of the population but 37.6 percent of people killed, says the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. And in East Harlem, children make up 30 percent of the population, but 43 percent of victims.

    "It's almost always short people," says Schwartz.

    The next mayor should continue what Bloomberg has done (even if some people don’t like it, as some dislike stop and frisk).

    City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has pledged to cut traffic deaths in half by 2021. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio wants Albany to let the city decide how many speed cameras it needs. It would be nice to hear something from the Republicans (and other Democrats).

    Saving lives is saving lives — whether you're punishing a reckless gun-toter in The Bronx, or a reckless driver in Manhattan.

    Of course, "speed cameras" just expand the surveillance leviathan and are ultimately another distraction from the absolutely inevitable challenge if the planetary biosphere is to survive… BANNING CARS.
     

  10. WHY WE FIGHT
    From Streetsblog, Aug. 6:

    All too often, a New York City driver jumps a curb, strikes a pedestrian (or 10), and is on his or her way without so much as a traffic ticket. If the motorist is a repeat drunk driver, or if the crash kills a teenager, it might grab the public’s attention for a moment. But usually, victims are transported to the hospital, debris is swept away, and as far as police and prosecutors are concerned, all is forgotten. No investigation. No arrests. No summonses.

    Shortly after 6:45 p.m. yesterday, police say a woman driving a minivan on Boston Road in the Bronx was cut off by another driver near Corsa Avenue in Williamsbridge. She swerved onto the sidewalk, crashing into four storefronts and injuring two pedestrians, who along with the driver were transported to Jacobi Medical Center with injuries that were not life-threatening, according to FDNY.

    Because no one was killed or seriously injured, NYPD’s Collision Investigation Squad did not launch an investigation. A police spokesperson could not say whether the second motorist stayed at the scene or drove off. NYPD did, however, tell Streetsblog that there is “no criminality” and that no summonses were issued. No summonses for passing unsafely. No speeding tickets.

  11. Now you don’t even need a “license” to have a license to kill
    From Streetsblog, Aug. 8:

    Misdemeanor Charge for Accused Unlicensed Driver in Death of Queens Senior
    A motorist who allegedly killed a senior while driving without a license, who police said was speeding, and who was reportedly wanted by authorities on another vehicular charge at the time of the crash, has been charged with a misdemeanor by Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

    Rafael Diaz, 73, was crossing Atlantic Avenue in Woodhaven at around 7:30 p.m. on May 16 when he was struck by Joel Rodriguez, according to reports. Diaz died at Jamaica Hospital. The Forum reported that an officer from the 102nd Precinct said the vehicle that hit Diaz was traveling “in excess of 60 miles per hour.”

    Online court records say Rodriguez, 25, was charged with driving without a license and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the third degree, a misdemeanor that stipulates that he drove without a license when he knew or should have known he didn’t have one.

    The Post reported that, according to Brown’s office, Rodriguez was wanted on a warrant issued in April for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle — taking or operating a vehicle without the owner’s consent.

    Despite the allegation that he was driving without a license, the police account that he was speeding, and the outstanding warrant, Rodriguez was not charged for killing Rafael Diaz. This is not unusual. In 2011, two unlicensed drivers each pled to a top charge of third degree aggravated unlicensed operation for the deaths of Yolanda Casal and Laurence Renard, pedestrians killed in separate crashes in Manhattan. In each case, the driver was fined $500.

    Rodriguez is next scheduled to appear in court on October 10.

  12. WHY WE FIGHT

    From the Daily News, Jan. 2:

    75-year-old man struck and killed crossing street in Brooklyn
    The man was crossing in the middle of Seventh Ave. near 65th St. in Bay Ridge when he was hit by a green Toyota Camry that slid forward after being rear-ended by a red Jeep Cherokee. Police said that Thursday's weather could have played a part in the accident.

    From CBS New York, Sept. 9:

    Brooklyn Bus Accident Leaves 41 Injured
    More than three-dozen people were injured Monday afternoon when a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus collided with a car in Brooklyn.

    The accident happened at 4:40 p.m. at Albany Avenue and Herkimer Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of the borough, authorities said.

    In all, 41 people were injured, including dozens on the B15 bus, the FDNY told CBS 2. They were taken to area hospitals. Some people in the car were also hospitalized with injuries. Twelve were seriously injured, while the remaining 29 suffered minor injuries, authorities said…

    A witness told CBS 2’s Lou Young the driver of the car was fleeing authorities and ran a stop sign. At that point, the car was hit by the bus, the witness added.