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No Big Deal If You Run People Over On A NYC Sidewalk
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 25, 2013
Modified Mar 25, 2013
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By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 25, 2013
Modified Mar 25, 2013
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In the span of four weeks, five motorists collided with pedestrians on the sidewalks of New York City, killing three and severely injuring two others. But as we've seen time and again, the drivers responsible face no serious consequences for their actions. “I hope this is an eye-opener and we have some change, because it's really, truly heartbreaking,” the daughter of 90-year-old Mansoor Day tells the Post. Day—co-founder of one of New York’s first abortion clinics—is still in extremely critical condition after SUV driver Richard Mouss crashed into him on the sidewalk outside Sak's Fifth Avenue in February.
Day suffered a stroke, head, and leg injuries and is still hospitalized. Mouss, who was behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle, was arrested but the Manhattan DA's office declined to press charges. A spokesperson for the DA declined to comment, but Michael Murphy, the spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, has this to say:
The District Attorneys are limited by the realities of the legal system. Fortunately, now that the NYPD deploys the Collision Investigation Squad to serious injury crashes, the DAs will have more evidence to build a case as the police conduct thorough investigations for more crashes than ever before. The next step is to reform the laws to enable stricter sentences for drivers who cause harm while violating traffic laws.
The driver who killed 16-year-old Tenzin Druda on a Long Island City sidewalk earlier this month also avoided criminal charges—he reportedly blamed the crash on some milk that he spilled while driving. And John McKinney, an ex-con who ran over Emmy-winning TV producer Martha Atwater outside a Brooklyn bakery last month, won't be prosecuted either. A day later, another woman was killed on the sidewalk in Manhattan at the corner of Third Avenue and East 27th Street; again, no criminality suspected.
Part of the problem is that a Court of Appeals ruling currently requires prosecutors to demonstrate "serious moral blameworthiness" when bringing a charge of criminally negligent homicide. Speeding alone is usually insufficient to establish criminality, and one Nassau County prosecutor told the Times last month, "Because of the way the court is deciding criminal negligence, it would be a risk to go for the higher charge of recklessness."
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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