NEW YORK – Police are searching for the driver who struck and killed a pedestrian in the East Village and didn’t even stop to check on the victim, though that wasn’t the only driver who didn’t stop to help.
The incident occurred around 5 a.m. Thursday, when a 21-year-old man was crossing Houston Street near Forsyth Street, surveillance cameras showed. The light changed when he was in the median, and a private sanitation truck slowed down to let him through.
However, at that very moment, a black sedan can be seen traveling at high speed on the right side of the truck. The car rammed the victim, identified as Andy Eduardo Gil, and dragged him down the street. Both the car and the sanitation truck left Gil in the middle of the street and drove away, video released by the NYPD shows.
Gil was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
NYPD highway investigators shut down Houston Street for much of the morning, turning the main east-west thoroughfare into a crime scene as they searched for surveillance video and witnesses to the early-morning hit-and-run.
Police are still looking for the driver of the car.
Statistics from the NYPD show pedestrian deaths are down in 2022 compared to last year, with 53 killed in collisions so far this year, down from 66 at this time in 2021.
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