A driver slammed into two women crossing a Brooklyn street, killing one of them, during a police chase in which he later hopped out of his vehicle and onto the subway on Thursday, cops said.
Video obtained by the Daily News shows a pedestrian scurry out of the crosswalk and a red sedan slam on its brakes as the hit-and-run driver streaks through the intersection of Eldert St. and Knickerbocker Ave. in Bushwick with a marked NYPD car in hot pursuit.
Just out of frame in the next crosswalk at the intersection, the driver, behind the wheel of a blue Mazda CX-5 with Massachusetts plates, slammed into women ages 71 and 44 around 5 p.m., cops and sources said.
“A police car was following him with lights and sirens,” witness Sandra Villman, 56, told the Daily News. “The impact was like a boom, like an explosion and I realized the car hit two people.”
The out-of-control driver then slammed into a van parked at the intersection.
“She was crushed between the car and the van,” said an employee at a nearby bodega. “The women were in the crosswalk.”
The driver abandoned his totaled car, ran about two blocks into the Halsey St. subway station and hopped on an L train, police sources said.
“One lady was unconscious and they were trying to resuscitate her,” said Villman. “There was no response.
“She was dead on the scene,” she added.
The younger victim sat in the street crying as she bled from her head and torso, according to the witness.
The chase began when officers saw the driver make an unspecified traffic violation, cop sources said, declining to go into detail. They couldn’t state where the violation happened or what may have sparked the driver to flee.
Medics rushed the 71-year-old woman to Wyckoff Hospital, but she could not be saved. The other victim was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she was expected to survive.
The slain woman’s name was not released as police worked to notify her family of her death.
The driver was described by cop sources as a man with a ponytail wearing gray sweatpants.
L trains were delayed Thursday evening as police worked to find him.
There were no immediate arrests.
NYPD car chases have surged under the Adams administration, according to an analysis by news site The City.
In the first three months of 2023, police engaged in pursuit 304 times — marking an almost 600% uptick compared to the same time frame in 2022 — the outlet found, citing data about 911 calls.
The increase exceeded the total number of vehicle pursuits in 2022, which came to 214 chases.
The spike in pursuits stemmed from concerns that more crimes were being carried out by drivers in unregistered vehicles, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell explained last year.
“People thinking they can take off on us — those days are over,” he said at a July 6 press conference.
While the policy shift has drawn criticism from police watchdogs who say the risks outweigh the potential upsides, the NYPD insists high-speed chases are sometimes necessary.
“Pursuing any car is inherently dangerous,” Chell said last year. “You’ve got to strike that balance [of] when you’re going to do it, how you’re going to do it … I tell bosses if you don’t think it’s a go, you call it off.”
