IN-SANIT-TY! Trash haulers beaten in B’klyn road rage
THREE MEN, including one sporting brass knuckles, knocked two city sanitation workers unconscious in a Brooklyn road rage attack, officials said.
Dennis Jackson, 53, and partner Dandy Montalvo, 39, were working their afternoon route on Highland Place near Ridgewood Ave. when a white van suddenly screeched to a halt near their garbage truck, officials said.
The enraged trio jumped out and charged the city workers.
“Why the f--- did you cut me off?” one yelled before the three unleashed a furious assault.
“They came storming up the street in a hostile way, fists clenched,” Jackson told the Daily News. “I could see them coming toward us in this really violent way.”
Williams was working on the street in East New York, with Jackson climbing out of the truck to see what was happening, when the incident escalated quickly around 5:40 p.m. Wednesday.
“I heard a lot of screaming and saw people running up the street,” a 15-year-old witness told the Daily News.
A spatter of dried blood remained on the pavement one day later.
Jackson, a 17-year sanitation veteran, said he and Montalvo were knocked out before the three men sped away in the van. Jackson, who suffered gashes to his head and behind one ear, believes some sort of blade was attached to the brass knuckles.
Montalvo suffered a busted lip and a bruised left eye, police said. The suspects were described by a witness as two young men and an older man.
No arrests were made Thursday, although Jackson said a good Samaritan on the block called 911 for help — and snapped a picture of the van’s license plate.
Jackson recounted past road rage incidents where drivers honked their horns or shouted at him, but said the attack in the middle of the street was a first. “It’s disheartening that people don’t respect city employees and the job we do,” Jackson told The News. “And it’s disheartening that road rage and impatience has gotten so out of hand. People don’t have patience anymore.” Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia (photo) visited the two workers Wednesday night at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
“I am outraged that two dedicated sanitation workers who were only trying to make our city safe and clean were brutally attacked,” she said.
In 2012, Gov. Cuomo signed a bill that made assaulting an on-duty sanitation worker a felony.
Jackson said the incident will remain in the back of his mind when he returns to work.
“You’ll always have the fear that it could happen again,” he said.
It’s disheartening that road rage and impatience has gotten so out of hand.
— Dennis Jackson