An 18-year-old woman is dead and four others injured after a man crashed his car in Brooklyn early Friday after blowing a red light, police said.
The deadly incident occurred in Cobble Hill at around 3:30 a.m., when the 25-year-old suspect ran through a red light and smashed his Mercedes Benz into another vehicle near the intersection of Court Street and Atlantic Avenue, cops said.
First responders arrived on the scene and rushed the teen girl, who was a passenger in the Honda, to Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead.
Two other occupants of the Honda, a 29-year-old man and a 32-year-old woman, along with a female passenger of the Mercedes, were also hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
Meanwhile, the Mercedes driver, who was allegedly speeding at the time of the collision, hopped out of the car after the crash and attempted to flee the scene — but cops quickly tracked him down and slapped him with handcuffs.
The suspect was arrested, and charges are pending against him, according to police.
Even hours later, remnants of the crash were still clearly evident, with branches from a tree on Court Street knocked to the pavement, and fragments of both cars littering the sidewalk outside the local Trader Joe’s.
So far this year, there have been 145 fatalities stemming from motor vehicle crashes in the five boroughs, according to the data-tracking website Crash Mapper.
The location of Friday’s deadly crash was just one block from where another driver ran through a red light and killed 31-year-old Katherine Harris at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street in April.
Elected officials weighed in on today’s deadly crash.
“There was another tragic, avoidable crash on Atlantic Avenue & Court Street last night,” said local Council Member Lincoln Restler on Twitter. “This is the second fatality in five months on Atlantic due to reckless driving. This is one of the most dangerous strips in Brooklyn & we need safety improvements on Atlantic Ave NOW.”
“We need immediate action to dramatically slow down traffic, install mid-block crossings, and improve safety for all,” the Council member added.
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes echoed Restler’s calls for improved street safety on Atlantic Avenue, where cars often travel at high speeds on the four-lane roadway, which leads to the entrance to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at the nearby waterfront.
“Another fatality on a road we already know to be dangerous, and another fatality due to reckless driving,” Gounardes tweeted. “We can’t fix Atlantic Avenue fast enough, and we need a hell of a lot more accountability for drivers who speed and run red lights.”
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