Child fatally struck by car in Brooklyn
A 7-year-old Brooklyn boy was struck and killed by a driver Thursday morning while walking to school with his mother — becoming at least the second young pedestrian killed by a vehicle in the city in three days, police said.
Payson Lott and his mom, Shadeen, 39, were in the crosswalk at Blake and Pennsylvania avenues in East New York at 8:15 a.m. — three blocks from his school, PS 328 — when driver Susan Pierrot, 48, struck them with her SUV, authorities said.
“When I got outside I saw everyone crying on the sidewalk,” said resident Omar Almansori. “The baby in the street, a lot of blood. It was very, very scary.”
“She’s screaming, ‘Help, help. He’s not moving,’” he said of the boy’s mother. “She was in shock when she saw the kid not move. She was crying, saying, ‘He’s not moving.’ Nobody could help.”
The boy was rushed to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in critical condition, where he was pronounced dead. Shadeen was treated for minor injuries and released.
Pierrot, of Brooklyn, remained at the scene and was later arrested, police said.
She was charged with one count of aggravated unlicensed operation, two counts of failure to yield to a pedestrian, and two counts of failure to exercise due care.
She was given a desk-appearance ticket at the 75th Precinct station house and released Thursday afternoon.
City records show the license plate registered to Pierrot’s silver Jeep had two city traffic-camera violations for speeding in a school zone in 2019.
Payson’s blood-soaked orange winter coat remained on the pavement hours after police cordoned off the scene. Nearby lay his backpack and a little blue umbrella.
The boy and his mom had just stepped out of the corner deli with a bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich when they were struck.
“He was on his way to school. He was in here to buy a sandwich,” said deli worker Salah Ahmid, 49. “The mother, she was waiting for him outside. She said, ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’ They crossed the street, then I heard a boom.”
“He was laying there,” he said. “The mother was screaming.”
Another witness, Danny Gonzalez, 61, said bystanders had tried to help the boy.
“I saw it. They tried to give him CPR, but I think it was too late,” he said. “The school is right there. It’s like 100 feet to the school.”
The boy’s death comes two days after 10-year-old Patience Albert was fatally run over by a city school bus as she was walking to class with her 15-year-old brother a little over a mile away, at Wortman Avenue and Crescent Street.
The bus driver, Pedro Colon, 61, was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care in connection with the Tuesday-morning crash.
“The last two days have been horrendous,” Mayor de Blasio said on Thursday. “Everyone knows I’m a parent and my kids went to our public schools, and this is just sick. It’s horrible what’s happened.”
Lott’s death was the 23rd pedestrian fatality in the city this year.
Last year, 123 pedestrians were killed in the city, up from 115 in 2018, according to the NYPD