When Mayor de Blasio arrived at the Park Slope YMCA on Ninth Street Tuesday morning, more than 100 concerned parents and advocates lined the entrance, shouting “safe streets now!”
The rally came in the wake of a fatal crash nearby on Monday afternoon; overnight, police had confirmed the deaths of one-year-old Joshua Lew and four-year-old Abigail Blumenstein, both of whom were killed by a driver who sped through a red light at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street. Three adults were also struck, according to the NYPD: two women in their mid-30s (reportedly the children’s mothers), and a 46-year-old man. All were hospitalized in stable condition.
“There is a culture that devalues pedestrians,” said Kathy Park Price, a 43-year-old Park Slope mom of two. “We live in a city that is a walking city, but there is a culture that cars come first. And pedestrians are basically speed humps. Our kids are speed humps.”
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The driver, identified by the New York Daily News as 44-year-old Dorothy Bruns, was not arrested, though the NYPD confirmed that an investigation into the crash is ongoing. (“This very tragic incident is under active investigation and we are looking into all aspects of this case,” a spokesperson for the Brooklyn District
Attorney confirmed to Curbed.)
On Tuesday afternoon, officials confirmed that Bruns’s driver’s license was suspended. The white Volvo sedan she crashed Monday had reportedly been cited 12 times in two years, including four times for running a red light and four for speeding in a school zone. Police sources told Pix11 that Bruns self-reported a seizure during the crash, though the NYPD could not confirm this to Curbed.
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In the hours since the crash, elected officials, including Mayor de Blasio and Park Slope City Council member Brad Lander, have called for heightened enforcement of traffic infractions and more stringent Department of Motor Vehicles penalties for drivers with numerous violations. Bruns “said that she had a seizure, but I
don’t know if she had a seizure all those other times she failed to stop at traffic lights, all those other times she sped in a school zone,” Lander said, standing at a memorial of candles and stuffed animals a few
feet from the crash site Tuesday morning. “She should not have had a license, she should not have had a car.”
