From NY1, Sept. 23:
East Side Car Accident Kills Pedestrian, Injures Another
An elderly man died after police say he was struck and killed by a car while hailing a cab on Manhattan’s East Side on Saturday night.
Investigators said 80-year-old Rubin Baum…was standing with his wife in the crosswalk at East 59th Street and Park Avenue shortly before 10:30 p.m. Saturday.
They said a car driving eastbound on 59th Street hit another car going north on Park Avenue, sending the first car spinning into the couple.
Police said Baum was trapped under the car and suffered severe body trauma.
He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Baum’s wife was also taken to the hospital with a leg injury.
Police were still investigating Sunday but said both drivers stayed on the scene.
We are slightly skeptical of this version of events. Early reports on WNYC Radio said that Baum and his wife were standing on the sidewalk, not in the crosswalk—and the car jumped the curb. This is also how it is presented by Britain’s Daily Mail, which says he was killed when “a car spiraled onto the sidewalk” (and also, typically, makes much of the irrelevant fact that one of the cars involved belonged to a Pakistani diplomat). New York’s Daily News and Post also note that Pakistani diplomat angle, as well as the fact that Baum won two Purple Hearts for saving lives as a medic in the Korean War—but are ambiguous on the critical point of whether he was killed in the crosswalk or on the sidewalk. Of course either way his death was a crime (not just a “tragedy”), but it is important to establish the reality that not even the sidewalks are safe. The News also gives the inevitable line “Police say no criminality is suspected”—without a trace of irony, of course. We’d like to know what about this institutionalized terror isn’t criminal. We also object to use of the word “accident” without quote marks, given how cheap pedestrian life is in New York City, and the routine recklessness of motorists The depoliticized label “accident” is inherently misleading.
This one should drive up our hits, for all the wrong reasons. From the NY Times’ CityRoom blog, Sept. 19:
Lohan Charged With Leaving Accident Scene in Chelsea
Lindsay Lohan had another automotive encounter with the law early Wednesday, this one in Chelsea, where she was arrested on charges of leaving an accident scene after the police said she struck a pedestrian’s leg with her Porsche sport utility vehicle outside a hotel.According to the police, Ms. Lohan, 26, was returning to the Dream Downtown Hotel on West 16th Street around 12:20 a.m. when she turned into the entrance to the hotel’s parking garage, where several pedestrians were standing. Most of them moved out of the way, but a 34-year-old-man did not, and Ms. Lohan’s 2010 Porsche Cayenne struck him, the police said. (The police initially said the accident was at 2:30 a.m.)
The pedestrian was treated at Bellevue Hospital Center, the police said, while Ms. Lohan went into the hotel, remained for about two hours, and walked back out around 2:30, at which point she was arrested. The pedestrian, Jose Rodriguez, a chef, told The Daily News that he suffered torn tendons.
Leaving the scene of an accident is a misdemeanor. Ms. Lohan was given a desk appearance ticket and is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 23, The Associated Press reported. Her publicist, Steve Honig, told The A.P. the incident was “much ado about nothing” and said he expected her to be cleared of wrongdoing.
“Much ado about nothing.” Can you imagine the media pile-on if Lohan’s tendons had been torn? Fuck you, Steve Honig.
See more reasons WHY WE FIGHT.
