An NYPD tow truck driver struck and killed a 7-year-old boy as he and his mother were crossing a street in Brooklyn Thursday morning, police said.
The tow truck was traveling west on Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene around 7:50 a.m. when its driver tried to make a right turn onto North Portland Avenue, at the north end of Fort Greene Park, NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said at a news briefing.
As the driver turned and started to pass through the crosswalk at the intersection, the tow truck struck the boy, who was crossing the street with his mother, Maddrey said.
The driver “stopped immediately,” Maddrey said, but emergency personnel who arrived soon after pronounced the boy dead at the scene. His name wasn’t immediately released.
The driver, a 54-year-old woman, remained at the scene, police said. An investigation into the incident remains ongoing.
“My heart goes out to the family of that young boy and his mother, and his school, his teachers, who were also at the scene — a very tough scene to be at this morning,” Maddrey said.
The driver was towing a car to the NYPD’s tow pound in Brooklyn when the incident happened, he added.
In a statement provided to NY1, Department of Education press secretary Nathaniel Styer said the boy was not a New York City Public Schools student, but noted that the DOE “offered and are providing services to their school and the surrounding schools as the community grieves.”
“This is an unspeakable tragedy, and our hearts go out to this child and their family,” Styer said.
In his own statement, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso said there were “no words to adequately describe the horror of this tragedy.”
“I mourn alongside the victim’s family, loved ones, and community, and I am angered that yet another innocent life has been lost way too soon to senseless traffic violence on our streets,” Reynoso said. “A child has been robbed of the future that he deserved, and nothing can bring him back. However, we can and will pursue justice on his behalf.”
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