11-YEAR-OLD BRONX BOY KILLED IN ACCIDENT WHILE CROSSING GRAND CONCOURSE
From: New York attorney Gary E. Rosenberg (personal injury and accident attorney and lawyer; serving Brooklyn Queens Bronx; Queens Injury Attorney)
An 11-year-old Bronx boy died on the morning of Wednesday February 16, 2011 after he was struck by a car while he tried to cross the Grand Concourse on his way to buy milk for his family, police and witnesses said.
Russell Smith was crossing the busy street at 7:47 a.m. near the corner of East 183rd Street in the Tremont section when he was struck by a grey Honda.
Smith was taken to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
The boy's mother Monique Mitchell, 32, said, "I don't know what I'm going to do. He was a good kid, a smart kid. He had a lot of friends. Everybody loved him. He had a big heart."
His mother said in an exclusive television interview with NY1 that the family is "destroyed" by the incident.
Witnesses said Smith, a fifth-grader at nearby PS 9, was hit by the car's rearview mirror as he tried to cross a red light.
His family said Smith was on his way to a grocery store to buy milk for his infant brother.
"His body was broken, his head was smashed in, his front lip was split and his teeth was crushed," said Mitchell. "That was my boy."
"He's so close to his sister, his six-year-old sister, they're close. I don't know what's going to happen," said Mitchell as she was visibly upset. "I don't know how my kids are going to take it. He's got a six-year-old brother that's destroyed right now, and I'm trying to be strong for the rest of them. Oh god, this is so terrible."
Neighbors say that intersection is very dangerous, and that a 12-year-old girl was killed by a driver at the same intersection in 2005.
The boy's mother says he feared crossing the Grand Concourse and would often use a nearby subway station to cross underneath the street and come up on the other side to avoid the cars.
"This is my baby, and he's 10, so it's really hard for me. It's just really hard for me. I saw the aftermath," said eyewitness Michelle Jackson. "I didn't see him get hit, but I saw him there on the road. He was lifeless, there was no movement."
City motorcycle deaths on rise
There's no easy riding on the streets of New York.
Thirty-nine people died on motorcycles in the five boroughs in 2010, an increase of 10 -- or 34 percent -- over 2009's tally, the city Department of Transportation said.
Motorcycles account for 14 percent of all traffic fatalities in New York, although they make up just 2 percent of motor-vehicle registrations.
Motorcyclists are 18 times more likely to be killed in crashes than people in cars, buses or trucks. Speeding is a factor in 46 percent of motorcycle crashes, the city says.
