Driver charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian after killing a man while making a left turn in the 109th Precinct in Queens, NYC

Another pedestrian was killed in a car accident in NYC in the 109th precinct. According to Streetblog, this is the third pedestrian to die in this precinct since the beginning of the year. The accident happened Tuesday morning at the crossing of Prince Street and 35th Ave in Flushing, Queens. A 57 year old man who was crossing the street in the crosswalk was struck by a SUV driven by 55 year old Raymond Ortiz as he was making a left turn. Ortiz stayed at the scene of the accident and was charged with violation of the right of way law. The victim died at the hospital.

Earlier in the year, at the beginning of March, in the same precinct, 90 year old Dorothy Heiman was fatally struck by a car making a left turn.  The driver wasn’t charged. In January a pedestrian was  killed by a cement truck in the same precinct and the driver wasn’t charged either. In both cases police weren’t very cooperative in providing accurate information to determine if the pedestrian had the right of way.

Last year after several pedestrians were killed in the precinct, most of the time by negligent drivers, the police and the council members blamed the victims for their own deaths and lectured pedestrians on how to walk.