Bangladeshi boy killed in NY
An eight-year-old boy who was walking with his sister to school was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer on Friday in an intersection in Queens just two blocks from his home, the authorities said.
Friday was the last day of school before winter break, and the boy, Noshat Nahian, was carrying a present for his third-grade teacher, according to his father.
But as he walked across the intersection of 61 Street and Northern Boulevard in Woodside about 8:00am, Noshat was struck by the truck's rear tires as the driver was making a left turn onto Northern Boulevard, the police said. The boy's sister was not hit, the police said.
“When we came he said, 'I don't want to go back,'” Noshat's father Osma Miah said, crying as his brother translated. “He said, 'I want to stay.' ”
Osma Miah said he was training to become a deliveryman and hoped to one day buy Noshat a laptop, because the boy loved video games and computers.
The truck driver, identified by the police as Mauricio Osorio-Palominos, 51, of Newark, was arrested and charged with aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, a misdemeanour, and operating a vehicle in violation of safety rules. Osorio-Palominos was working for Roadtex Transportation Corporation, a shipping company based in New Jersey, the police said.
A spokesman for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Roadtex Transportation Corporation has been sued multiple times for negligence, including six times in the tristate area, and its trucks have been involved in several fatal collisions, court records show.
A crossing guard, who was working on Friday morning at an intersection close to the site of the collision, recalled Noshat as a sweet, quiet boy who walked to school most mornings with his sister, often a few short paces in front of her.
“This morning he waited for the light,” the guard said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she was not allowed to speak to the news media. “I told him to wait, and he waited to cross the street. The next thing I knew he was killed.”
The children were about half a block away from their school, Public School 152. A spokeswoman for the city's Education Department said a crisis team had been sent to the school to aid students and teachers. In a letter to parents, Vincent Vitolo, the school's principal, said grief counsellors would be available for children and staff members over the winter vacation.
Several parents, including Ruhel Hassan, 43, a waiter with five children, two of whom used to attend P.S. 152, said there was not normally a crossing guard at the intersection where Noshat was killed.
“People speed, and there's no crossing guard,” Hassan said. “Once my kid almost got run over.”
The child's death comes about a month and a half after a 9-year-old boy was killed when the driver of a d Ford Expedition ploughed into a group of people on a street corner in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
The driver, Anthony Byrd, 59, was not intoxicated and did not try to flee the scene. Nonetheless, Byrd was charged with negligent homicide and other offences -- a welcome development for pedestrian advocates who have criticised the police for not bringing serious charges in fatal accidents.
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