A deadly crash in the Bronx Monday morning prompted the City Council’s transportation committee chairman to call for more NYPD resources to combat what he described as a “hit-and-run epidemic.”
One pedestrian was killed and another was injured when a BMW heading south on Third Avenue near 181st Street hit a van around 5:09 a.m. and then plowed into the two victims, police said. The pedestrians, Wally Dominguez, 27, and a 24-year-old man, were pinned between the BMW and the van, according to cops.
Dominguez, who suffered trauma to his head and body, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The 24-year-old man was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital in stable condition with an ankle injury.
Immediately after the crash, the driver and occupants of the BMW got out of the vehicle and fled on foot, an NYPD spokesman said. It was unclear how many passengers were in the BMW, he added.
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, chair of the council’s Committee on Transportation, went to the scene of the crash later Monday and urged the NYPD to double the number of police officers it has assigned to the Collision Investigation Squad.
“We must combat this hit-and-run epidemic in our streets. Let’s get dangerous drivers out of our streets,” Rodriguez tweeted along with a photo of him speaking at the scene.
The deadly crash comes just days after a new hit-and-run alert system, championed by Rodriguez, went into effect.
The DJ Jinx Paul Alert System, named after Jean Paul Guerrero, a radio disc jockey who was killed in a hit-and-run crash in 2016, will notify the public of hit-and-runs that result in injury or death within 24 hours of the crash.
The notification — which can be sent out by the NYPD via email, social media posts, text messages, phone calls or television and radio broadcasts — will include information on the vehicle involved in order to help police zero in on a suspect.
