Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance reportedly has declined to pursue charges against the taxi driver involved in an accident that killed a 9-year-old boy on the Upper West Side.
The parents of Cooper Stock, Dana Lerner and Richard Stock, told Yahoo News that they learned no charges would be brought during a Wednesday meeting with the district attorney’s office.
“They told me there is nothing in the law right now that specifies that he can be charged with any crime,” Lerner told Yahoo.
Ben Petok, a spokesman for the DA’s office, declined to comment and confirm the meeting with Cooper’s parents.
Cooper died Jan. 10 when a taxi driven by Koffi Komlani struck him while turning at West 97th Street and West End Avenue. Komlani, a 54-year-old from Harriman, New York, who received a summons for failing to yield to a pedestrian, has not been driving since the Cooper’s death, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission and NYPD.
Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a street safety group, said the news that Komlani would face no charges was “unjust and directly counter to the city’s Vision Zero initiative.”
“This injustice draws attention to glaring holes in the laws that are intended to protect us as we move around New York City,” White said in a statement.
The DA’s office has complained about the law restricting its ability to prosecute drivers who kill or seriously injure pedestrians.
The City Council is considering a bill called Cooper’s Law to mandatelicense suspensions and investigations into taxi drivers who kill or seriously injure a pedestrian when they fail to yield.
