Horrific NYC crash caught on video as pedestrian killed by high-speed chain reaction
Wild video shows a horrific chain-reaction crash apparently set off by a red-light-blowing Mercedes driver that killed one pedestrian — and left a shopping cart-pushing woman inches away from a similar fate in Harlem on Monday.
Angel Melendez, 51, who was riding with a 14-year-old boy in his front passenger seat, was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide after the 3:40 p.m. Monday smashup that took the life of another 51-year-old man at First Avenue and East 105th Street, authorities said.
Melendez was whizzing along First Avenue, heading north “at an apparent high rate of speed” when he suddenly switched from the left to the right lane and blew a red light, cops said.
As he crossed the East 105th Street intersection, his white 2007 Mercedes mounted the concrete island and smashed apart a laundry cart — barely missing the woman pushing it, according to cops and the shocking video.
He then rammed into a parked, unoccupied Suzuki motorcycle, cops said.
Melendez kept driving, next hitting a parked 2009 Chevy Tahoe — which in turn struck the 51-year-old victim, who was trying to cross between that SUV and a US Postal Service box truck, a 2017 Ford, according to cops and the video.
The Tahoe was also pushed into the box truck, as well as a parked 2007 Infiniti G350, cops said.
No one was inside either the Chevy or the box truck, but a 50-year-old man was behind the wheel of the Infiniti, police said.
The pedestrian, who suffered severe leg trauma, was rushed to Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he succumbed to his injuries, police said.
He was not immediately officially identified by police.
But local resident Gloria Robinson told WNBC she remembers fondly how her mortally injured neighbor used to lift her spirits.
“I was very sick. I had cancer. I was so sick,” Robinson said. “He used to make me laugh. I just screamed, I just cried. I just cried for him and I can’t believe it’s true.”
The Infiniti driver, meanwhile, was taken to Harlem Hospital with minor injuries, cops said.
The teen boy riding in the Mercedes next to the high-speed driver was not hurt during the chaotic ordeal, police said.
Melendez stayed at the scene and was taken to Metropolitan Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.
He also faces raps for acting in a manner injurious to a child — related to his teen passenger — and second-degree reckless endangerment, police said.
