Juanita Vidal was running an errand for her 17-year-old grandson’s birthday with her 44-year-old daughter at the same time officers from the NYPD’s 83rd precinct attempted to pull over the driver of a blue Mazda CX-5 with Massachusetts plates at the corner of Eldert St. and Wilson Ave. in Bushwick around 5 p.m. May 9.

The driver instead took off northbound on Eldert St. and blew through two stop signs a block away at the intersection of Knickerbocker Ave. and Eldert St., cops said.

Video viewed by the Daily News showed the driver streaking through the intersection as police followed close behind. Just off camera, in the crosswalk, the driver slammed into Vidal and her 44-year-old daughter.

She was taken to Wyckoff Hospital but could not be saved. Her daughter, Jessica Vidal, was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center in stable condition.

The city Medical Examiner deemed Vidal’s death a homicide, cops said Wednesday.

Police are still looking for the driver, who ditched the totaled car after the crash and fled onto an L train at the nearby Halsey St. Station.

The driver was described by cop sources as a man with a ponytail wearing gray sweatpants.

Blake Cherry, 31, faces federal and state charges after his latest victim escaped on Friday and called 911, prosecutors say.

The woman, who law enforcement sources describe as a 27-year-old acquaintance, said he held her for a harrowing three days in her East New York home. He beat her, raped her, cut her above her eye with a pair of scissors, and made her have sex with strangers, according to court filings.

Cherry got out of prison on Oct. 16 of last year after serving a seven-year sentence for his last foray in sex trafficking — an atrocious string of crimes against two girls, ages 14 and 15, whom he duped into the sex trade in 2016. He’s listed as a Level 3 sex offender, the state’s highest risk level.

He targeted the younger teen in April 2016, chatting her up on Facebook and luring her to New York from Connecticut. She wanted to be a model, and he convinced her that he was a photographer, and she could make good money with him, according to prosecutors.

She ran away from home, boarded a Greyhound bus, and met him at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. He took her to his East New York home, where she soon learned that he had lied to her.

The 14-year-old girl was forced to sleep on a couch in Cherry’s bedroom, while he slept with his girlfriend nearby. He beat his girlfriend in front of the teen, terrifying her, then told the girl she’d be having sex with men who answered a Backpage.com ad, prosecutors said.

Cherry introduced the girl to an accomplice, Quayshaun Canady, who took her to a hotel and forced her to work as a prostitute for him as well. After several days, she got sick, and Canady brought her back to Cherry’s house. She escaped to a shelter, and was reunited with her family.

Canady was also arrested, and sentenced in 2017 to two to six years behind bars. He’s back in prison on a 2023 burglary conviction.

Cherry targeted the second teen in October 2016, luring her to his house by telling her they’d go out shopping, prosecutors said. There, Cherry and others fed her booze and took pictures of her, which he put on Backpage.com.

When she told him she didn’t want to be a prostitute, he took her to his basement and raped her, then drove her around Brooklyn and Queens and forced her to have sex with men for money, prosecutors said.

The girl snapped a picture of Cherry’s license plate and sent it to a family member, and the NYPD tracked the car to Queens, rescuing her moments before a meet-up with a john.

Cherry wound up pleading guilty to sex trafficking and second-degree promoting prostitution, and was sentenced to seven years behind bars in March 2018. He served the full seven years, and was forced to register as a sex offender on his release.

It only took him a few months to get back into the forced prostitution business, state and federal prosecutors allege.

“Upon his release, the defendant immediately engaged in the very same conduct that resulted in his prior term of incarceration despite being monitored as a probationer and registered sex offender,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachel Shanies wrote in a Monday memo to a federal judge. “The defendant’s release would jeopardize not only the safety of the identified victim but also other women and girls in the New York City region.”

He kidnapped the most recent victim on May 6, keeping her in his East New York house, according to a criminal complaint. Cherry beat and choked her, cut her face with scissors, and forced her to have sex with him. On May 7, he used an app on his phone to shop her to prostitution clients, according to court documents.

When she escaped, she told a 911 dispatcher she was being sold, “beat on” and hit in the face, federal prosecutors allege.

Cherry was arraigned on kidnapping, assault, rape and other charges in Brooklyn criminal court Saturday, then appeared before Brooklyn Federal Court Magistrate Judge James Cho on Monday, where he was hit with a federal sex trafficking charge. Cho ordered him held without bail.

The federal charge carries a mandatory minimum 15-year sentence and a maximum of life.

Cherry’s lawyer, Kyla Wells of the Federal Defenders, declined comment Tuesday.

The 20-year-old victim was in her apartment on Louisiana Ave. near Seaview Ave. in Starrett City on Sunday when her ex, Jaquan Harvey, showed up around 5:50 p.m., prosecutors said.

Harvey, 21, allegedly flew off the handle, throwing two televisions to the floor, shattering them.

He then attacked the woman, with whom he shares a 2-year-old child, and stabbed her six times in the chest with the tool, prosecutors said.

Harvey went on to stab the victim again in the eye with another weapon, they added.

Medics rushed the wounded woman to Brookdale University Hospital in critical condition, but her condition improved and she is recovering, according to her grandmother.

“I’m grateful,” said Patricia Brown, the victim’s grandmother. “I thought I’d have to identify her body but through God’s grace and mercy he kept her.”

Cops arrested Harvey and charged him with attempted murder, among other lesser charges.

Brown said the man spiraled out of control after her granddaughter left him.

“She was tired of him,” Brown said. “You can’t keep doing what you’re doing to people and expect them to stay.”

Shortly after the break up, Brown claims Harvey began stalking her granddaughter.

“He kept threatening her,” said the 64-year-old woman. “It was a jealous rage. He wanted to return to her but she said no, it’s over.”

The victim financially supported Harvey, who didn’t work, according to Brown.

“He would sometimes watch the baby when she went to work,” she said. “I really didn’t care for him. I’m a mother with daughters and I know what it is to be womanized.”

Doctors believe Brown’s granddaughter will be able to keep her eye after the vicious stabbing.

“He should be punished for what he done,” said Brown. “She’s a very good mother and a hardworking person.”

Following an arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court, Harvey was held on a $100,000 cash bail or $250,000 bond, records show.

Mayor Adams said the city aims to reimagine the 122-acre port, which is nestled between Red Hook and the Columbia Street Waterfront District. The terminal is set to be transferred to the city from the Port Authority under a lease agreement.

Any potential redevelopment of the waterfront would hinge on a city planning process that is just getting underway and would include community input. Today, the fenced-in marine terminal is a sprawl of pavement dotted by cargo sheds, shipping containers and soaring cranes. It was built in the 1950s and ’60s; two of its piers are so dilapidated that they are no longer in use.

The port sits above the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel and a short walk from Brooklyn Bridge Park, which was transformed over the last 15 years from an industrial waterfront into a breathtaking green space with athletic fields, covered basketball courts and sweeping views of lower Manhattan.

Adams said the marine terminal carries its own untapped potential. The land swap deal — in which the city has agreed to trade the Howland Hook Marine Terminal in Staten Island in return for the Red Hook waterfront — is one of the city’s largest real estate transactions in recent years, the mayor said.

“Just look at this space, and just see the reimagination that is possible,” Adams marveled, promising that the trade would ultimately produce a “neighborhood on our shoreline.”

The city will immediately invest $80 million in the port, according to City Hall. Those investments are to go toward repairs and a new electric crane to expand container terminal operations. The state has also pledged a $15 million investment in a cold storage facility at the site.

Gov. Hochul said the lease transfer is a step toward realizing the dreams of New Yorkers who for decades have imagined turning the marine terminal into “something more useful for the neighborhood.”

She said she and the mayor are impatient to revive the waterfront, but suggested they will make sure to consider community input. The announcement Tuesday was light on detail about any future projects unrelated to shipping at the site.

Still, Hochul suggested the time has come to “set sail on a whole new chapter for New York’s maritime future.” She said it would be “irresponsible” not to reimagine the terminal.

“Yes, this was once a thriving port,” Hochul acknowledged. “But reality has settled in. It’s no longer the port that it once was.”

The plan to shift the terminal out of the Port Authority’s hands was not warmly received by all.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat who represented the port for three decades before redistricting changed his district’s lines, said the site has unique shipping value as the lone container port facility with eastern access to the Hudson River.

Nadler argued that converting the port into housing could imperil supply chains in the event of a local maritime disaster, like the dramatic bridge collapse that snarled the Port of Baltimore earlier this spring.

“Instead of arbitrarily changing the ownership of Red Hook piers, the City, State, and the Port Authority should be doing everything possible to expand and invest in the port in Brooklyn,” Nadler said in a statement, adding: “I strongly urge the State, City, and the Port Authority to abandon this transfer.”

But Rep. Dan Goldman, the Democrat who represents lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn area around the port, celebrated the deal and vowed the project would carry on Nadler’s vision for the area as a shipping hub. He described the terminal as a “massively underused area with incredible potential.”

“We’ve now embarked on a very collaborative, cooperative process,” Goldman promised.

Jurors previously found Whitehead, 45, guilty of five counts including wire fraud, attempted extortion and lying to the FBI after he stole the life savings of his parishioner’s mother and perpetrated other schemes.

In court documents filed last week, prosecutors claimed Whitehead disparaged and threatened Pauline Anderson, the woman he conned $90,000 out of, and her son on social media, accusing the family of being FBI informants and having involvement in federal crimes.

Anderson was a single mother to one of Whitehead’s parishioners at Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in Canarsie, Brooklyn. The “Bling Bishop” was convicted of targeting her along with a money lending company and Bronx businessman Brandon Belmonte.

Prosecutors also charged that Whitehead violated a restraining order when he showed off several sealed documents during a live stream on Patreon, constituting contempt.

The feds argued that Whitehead’s erratic behavior poses “a danger to the safety of another person or the community, and that he is unlikely to abide by any condition or combination of conditions of release,” the documents stated.

In a letter addressed to Manhattan Federal Judge Lorna Schofield, Whitehead pleaded to remain on bail until his sentencing, noting the disclosure of the protective order was an “honest mistake.”

“It would be devastating to take me away from my two 16-year-old children, my nine-year-old daughter and my two-year-old baby girl,” he wrote. “Even though I maintain my innocence, I feel like I let my family down.”

Whitehead is due back in court next Monday, when Schofield will determine if Whitehead will spend the days leading up to his sentencing behind bars.

The NYPD found the body about 10:10 a.m. near the Bushwick Inlet in Greenpoint. The victim is believed to be in his 20s or 30s but has not yet been identified.

NYPD divers and Harbor Unit cops had searched the area after a 911 caller at 3:28 p.m. Sunday reported seeing a man enter the water and not return.

Anthony Doolan, 31, was discovered on the boat dry-docked in a Red Hook private lot on April 27 after the 4:54 a.m. blaze. Witnesses first called 911 reporting a dumpster fire, FDNY officials said. But when firefighters arrived to the fenced-in area on Conover St. near Beard St., they realized the fire was coming from a boat on a trailer.

Hours before Doolan was found he had been with his sister in Astoria, she said.

“He was at my house that morning,” said Jessica Simpson, 34. “He left my house at 1 a.m. He said he was going to go stay with his friend. He left and then I see on the news 3 or 4 hours after he left my house that this happened.”

For five days, Doolan’s family wondered where he was but with their brother homeless they had no way to contact him.

“He had no phone, nothing,” Simpson said. “I was reaching out [to others]. … Maybe he called one of his friends from upstate.”

It wasn’t until May 2 that Doolan’s family received word that he had died — and it was only after his death that family learned he had been sleeping on the boat.

“Him being burnt up and on a boat, it just doesn’t make sense,” the sister said.

On Friday, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the death is not considered suspicious at this time as cops wait for a final determination from the city medical examiner. An initial autopsy was inconclusive pending further study.

“Inside the boat we find lighters, cigarettes, vapes, syringes and a cooking stove that has butane fuel to light the stove,” Kenny said of the police investigation into the death. “We also find a benefit card and a pill bottle in a [different] male’s name. Through fingerprint analysis we’re able to identify the victim.”

“The body was found in a fetal position,” he added. “It seemed like he was sleeping in the boat and maybe using the stove as a source of heat.”

Several boats are stored in the lot, which also contains a homeless encampment next to the boat that burned, police said.

Doolan had several narcotics arrests on his record in Middletown, Orange County, Kenny said.

“I found out he was living on the boat because of the detective,” said brother Joseph Simpson, 41, of Middletown. “I’m still baffled by everything that’s happened.”

Doolan’s brother said Doolan had taken the death of his mother at age 14 particularly hard but the nine siblings stayed close, looking after each other, especially the youngest, Anthony.

“He was a good kid. He was young when we lost our mother, and from there he was lost without Mom. He moved up to Albany with me, he moved around with our sisters — he tried to find a way. He thought the city was going to be something new and amazing for him, and then this happened.”

“He was a harmless person, he would never hurt anybody,” he added. “He grew up a country boy, so setting himself on fire makes no sense to any of us.”

Doolan’s siblings, desperate for answers, say they haven’t heard from the NYPD and that it was police in Liberty, Sullivan County, who notified the family of Doolan’s death.

The death is just the latest hardship for the family.

“I’ve lost two brothers in the last year and another brother is presumed missing. It’s been a devastating year for our family,” posted Joseph Simpson in an online fundraiser. “I’m a proud man and I take pride in taking care of family. But I just can’t afford to pay for services and lay them to rest.”

Carl Simpson, 44, died in his sleep on April 2, 2023. Family said Carl’s autopsy results have yet to be released and his body is still with the medical examiner. Jason Simpson, 43, hasn’t been heard from since November.

Joseph Simpson said Jason and Anthony both went to New York City and kept an eye on each other while trying to make their way and make ends meet.

“They would stick together, they would do things together. They would do their little hustles with cans, they would go to soup kitchens,” said Joseph Simpson.

Doolan’s family is left only with fond memories of their little brother pretending to be a superhero while riding his bike, willing to do anything for a laugh.

“He had the best sense of humor,” said eldest sister Melissa Doolan, 48. “He’d ride around town with a ShopRite bag on his shoulders like it was a cape.”

“He would do impressions of people, he was such a comedian,” said Joseph Simpson. “He would jump up on the table and do a Johnny Cash impression.”

Family is hoping anyone with information comes forward.

“They say a man was found dead but to us it’s not a man who was found dead, it’s our baby brother,” said Joseph Simpson. “We have to get to the bottom of this one way or another.”

With Rocco Parascandola

Maurice Boodie, 24, was standing outside his building when he was shot in the chest and right leg on Strauss St. near Newport St. in Brownsville at about 12:10 a.m., police said.

Medics rushed the man to Brookdale University Hospital, where he died about an hour later.

Police have made no arrests.

A neighbor recalled hearing a loud “bang” that woke her up.

“I was listening to hear if there was screaming after, but I didn’t hear anything,” said the woman, who declined to provide her name. “Then later, sirens.”

Friends and family visiting the block after the shooting lovingly referred to Boodie as “Mo.”

“He was a very good person, very quiet [and] never in trouble,” said a cousin who did not want to be named. “I know his mother can’t be in there right now. It’s his blood still on the floor and everything.

“It’s too much right now,” the cousin added.

A neighbor questioned why he would’ve been targeted, noting she couldn’t think of anyone Boodie may have had beef with.

“[He was] just loving,” said the woman, who only identified herself as Sonya. “I was shocked when I heard about it.”

The shooting took place a half-block away from a West Indian restaurant on Strauss St. where workers Eyon Johnson and Damien White were shot to death on Oct. 27, 2022. Sawandi Galara, 46, was arrested for the killings in February 2023 and charged with murder.

“I’ve been here seven years [and] I don’t go outside,” said a neighbor. “I’m not hanging out on the stoop.”

Three uniformed cops were approaching the corner of E. 52nd St. and Church Ave. in East Flatbush in a marked police vehicle when they came upon a man, identified by his friends and family as Christian Emile, pointing a gun at a rival just before 1:20 a.m., NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey told reporters.

The cops — two officers and a sergeant from the 67th Precinct — ordered Emile to drop the gun, the chief said.

When Emile, 33, instead ran from the sidewalk to the street, near a deli on Church Ave., one of the officers fired a Taser at him, briefly stunning him, Maddrey said.

“He still had the gun in his hand,” Maddrey said. “He runs back to the sidewalk and runs back toward 52nd St.”

The officers again yelled at him to drop his gun, then opened fire, mortally wounding him, Maddrey said.

The cops performed “lifesaving measures” on Emile until medics took him to Kings County Hospital, where he died shortly after, Maddrey said.

About 30 mourners, including Emile’s young son, gathered at his Brooklyn home Thursday night.

“He was a great guy,” said a friend who only identified himself as Jason. “A protector of his family. It’s a tragedy.”

Emile served multiple prison stints for robbery and was first incarcerated in December 2007, when he was just 16 years old, records show.

In 2021, he was locked up again for robbery, serving just over two months before he was released on parole.

The protesters met in front of the Barclays Center about 2 p.m. before splitting up into groups, with one group marching northwest to the bridge, according to demonstrators.

More than one hundred protesters took over the bridge, blocking traffic on the upper-level west-bound lanes as they marched towards Manhattan, according to NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry and police.

Birds-eye footage that Daughtry posted on X showed officers intercepting the protesters, then taking several into custody.

“More than an inconvenience, this is a public safety hazard,” Daughtry wrote in the post. “The NYPD will always protect freedom of speech and protest, but we will not stand for lawlessness!”

Protesters later gathered in Chatham Square near the Criminal Courthouse, waiting for arrested protesters to be released. Cops said 150 people were taken into custody in total.

Protester Nas Issa, 26, said the Saturday rally was held to commemorate the 76th anniversary of ‘Nakba’, the annual observation of mass Palestinian displacement during the 1948 establishment of Israel.

“What we are seeing is history repeating itself with the destruction of homes, the mass displacement of people, the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians,” she said, “And so that’s why we called this march for today, both to honor the ‘Nakba’ but also to call for an end to the ongoing genocide.”

Last year, the UN General Assembly requested that the anniversary of the ‘Nakba’ be commemorated on May 15, for the first time in history.