An NYPD tow truck driver struck and killed a 7-year-old boy who was crossing the street in Brooklyn early Thursday, according to police.
The child was crossing at an intersection near Myrtle Avenue and North Portland Avenue in Fort Greene around 7:45 a.m. when the back of the truck struck him during a turn, officials said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said the boy’s mother was walking behind him when he was struck. His name has not yet been released as police continue to investigate the incident.
The boy’s small green scooter and orange backpack were still laying on the pavement hours later, not far from a white sheet that had been used to cover his body. Police and detectives photographed the items as shell-shocked neighbors from NYCHA’s Whitman Houses looked on.
Some witnesses expressed shock and outrage at the scene on Thursday morning.
“It wasn’t an accident, it was carelessness,” said Antwoan Hayes, who had parked his car near the intersection and was taking his children to school when the boy was struck.
That little boy was on his way to school. Seven years old. A little kid from this community. That’s why people are angry.
“That little boy was on his way to school,” Hayes added. “Seven years old. A little kid from this community. That’s why people are angry.”
Hayes said the boy was crossing the street on his scooter when the driver of the truck turned through the crosswalk, striking him as his mother walked steps behind with another child in a stroller.
“The mother just started screaming frantically, ‘They killed my baby, they killed my baby!’” Hayes recounted. “That little baby was gone. I didn’t want my babies to see that, so I took them out of the other side of the car.”
Several witnesses said the tow truck driver was speeding around the corner and did not immediately stop after hitting the child.
“She tried to keep going,” Hayes said.
Tyrana Carter, a Whitman Houses resident who witnessed the event and said she knew the boy from around the neighborhood, said he had the right of way and was following a “walk” signal.
“And the tow truck came speeding around the corner,” she said. “If the tow truck would have just took five minutes and slowed down, because this right here is an active intersection for our kids to go back and forth to school, catch buses… for me, it was devastating.”
Surveillance video shown to reporters by a deli on the corner of North Portland Avenue and Myrtle Avenue showed the driver appearing to turn quickly into the crosswalk, striking the boy on his scooter. (The footage did not show whether the boy was crossing with a “walk” signal, as Carter said.)
The NYPD said the incident is still under investigation.
Carter said the boy graduated from kindergarten with her granddaughter and that his death was “unimaginable.”
“I can’t imagine my grandbaby, who played with him every day in the park, laying out there like that,” she said. “The little boy was energetic, full of life, good kid. He liked to play in the park, he liked to run around, he liked to play tag.”
The little boy was energetic, full of life, good kid. He liked to play in the park, he liked to run around, he liked to play tag.
Carter said the boy’s mother is a teacher at a nearby early-childhood school. Gothamist could not independently verify that information as of early Thursday afternoon.
At an unrelated press conference on Thursday morning, NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey told reporters he had visited the scene, which he called “very tough.” “My heart goes out to the family of that young boy,” he said.
Local elected officials responded to the boy’s death with words of anger and dismay.
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso said he mourned the child and was “angered that yet another innocent life has been lost way too soon to senseless traffic violence on our streets.”
“A child has been robbed of the future that he deserved, and nothing can bring him back,” Reynoso said in a statement. “However, we can and will pursue justice on his behalf.”
City Councilmember Crystal Hudson visited the scene after hearing community members were reeling from the incident, and added that her office would try to organize a healing circle in the community.
“We have to hold the NYPD accountable the same way we expect to hold every other New Yorker accountable for obeying traffic laws,” she told Gothamist. “There is absolutely no reason why anybody, but particularly an NYPD tow truck, should be speeding through a light.
We have to hold the NYPD accountable the same way we expect to hold every other New Yorker accountable for obeying traffic laws.
Nine children have been killed in traffic incidents in New York City this year, according to Transportation Alternatives, a street safety advocacy group in New York City. Thursday’s crash happened just five blocks from where a driver struck and killed a 3-month-old in a stroller in 2021.
"Instead of redesigning our most dangerous roads and meeting the mandates of the NYC Streets Plan, Mayor Adams would rather play politics — watering down, delaying, and even canceling already-approved projects by his own Department of Transportation," Danny Harris, Transportation Alternatives’ executive director, said in a statement. "How many more children have to die before Mayor Adams takes action?”
This story has been updated with new information throughout.
