A young Brooklyn dad who was allegedly drunk and driving without a license when he fatally mowed down his beloved 3-year-old daughter sobbed hysterically for his “little angel” after realizing what he had done, relatives and friends said.
“He was in a total state of shock. He was screaming, ‘My little angel! I want my daughter back!’ ” a grieving family friend said.
Robert Abreu, 23, backed into his little girl, Jalien – known as JuJu – late Sunday night as she ran behind the 1990 Toyota 4Runner to say goodbye to her grandmother in the parking lot of the Surfside Gardens housing project in Coney Island, where the family lives, relatives said.
The smart, outgoing youngster had just returned home with her family from a 2-year-old cousin’s birthday party in The Bronx.
She’d climbed out of the rear passenger seat of the SUV with her mother and infant sister when Abreu jumped behind the wheel to move the car to a legal parking spot while the grandma finished saying goodbye, relatives and friends said.
“I heard something go ka-boom! Then I heard my mom scream, and I saw my sister,” said JuJu’s stricken half-brother, Manny Bonilla, 12.
The boy said his horrified mom, Nadhia Bonilla, yelled to her husband, “Robert, look!”
The boy saw his little sister lying on the ground, bleeding profusely and “twitching.”
The dad rushed to JuJu’s side and kept repeating, “I ran over my daughter by accident,” said his brother-in-law, David Almonte. “He was crying, ‘It was an accident!’ ”
A cop noticed Abreu’s unsteady gait, bloodshot eyes and slurred speech, and the dad was given a Breathalyzer test that showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.111 percent – well above the legal limit of 0.08 percent, authorities said.
Abreu was charged with vehicular manslaughter, DWI and driving without a license. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.
Abreu, who has a driver’s learner permit, admitted under questioning that he had consumed two beers and a shot of Bacardi Lemon, sources said.
While he was set for an arraignment hearing yesterday afternoon, JuJu’s mom was at Kings County Hospital identifying their daughter’s body. A relative said she later joined him at court.
“The doctors have [the mom] under medication,” said her brother, Bruandy Bonilla, 34.
He choked up and couldn’t speak after he started telling a reporter that his niece “used to call me Uncle Barney.”
“We’re all upset,” he said. “Everyone’s worried about Robert. Nobody blames him.”
While friends and family claimed that Abreu had backed into his daughter, the law-enforcement account was that he hit the little girl as she walked in front of the SUV.
Additional reporting by Zach Haberman