A school bus driver struck and killed a 10-year-old girl on her way to school in East New York Tuesday morning.
The driver ran over Patience Albert while making a right turn off of Crescent Street onto Wortman Avenue at around 6:45 am, striking the youngster on the crosswalk, cops said.
First responders found the victim unconscious and suffering severe trauma lying in the road. Paramedics rushed her to Brookdale Hospital in Brownsville, where doctors pronounced her dead.
The 61-year-old bus driver remained at the scene, where he was arrested shortly after 11 am and slapped with charges of failure to yield and failure to exercise due care, according to an NYPD spokesman.
The child’s death marks the 20th pedestrian fatality this year, and the fourth within the last 48 hours, according to the executive director of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, who claimed that the crash could’ve been prevented if elected leaders did more to promote street safety.
“This crash is not simply a failure of judgment on the part of the driver; it is a failure of leadership on the part of elected officials who accept tragedies like these as the price we pay for mobility,” said Danny Harris.
