A 5-year-old boy was killed Saturday after being struck by the driver of an SUV near a Queens playground.
Police say the boy, whose name has not been released, ran into the roadway between two parked vehicles on 124th Street in College Point, near Poppenheusen Playground, at the same time the 25-year-old driver of a Honda SUV was pulling out of a parking spot and heading south. The driver struck the boy at about 6 p.m. on May 18, police said.
The boy was taken to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, where he was pronounced dead. The driver of the Honda remained at the scene and was not arrested.
The incident occurred just blocks from the site where a teen cyclist, Durazno Darwin, was killed by a hit-and-run driver in 2021. About two miles away in Flushing, a 3-year-old boy, Quintas Chen, was fatally struck by a driver in November also pulling out of a parking spot, though that motorist fled the scene.
Queens has seen 28 traffic fatalities so far this year, one more than at the same time last year. Citywide, 82 people have lost their lives in collisions this year.
