8 hurt after Benz bandit crashes in B’klyn
A CAR THIEF barreled down a Brooklyn highway early Sunday in a high-end SUV and slammed into two other cars before ditching the stolen ride and running, police said.
The brazen robber lifted the Mercedes-Benz SUV in Crown Heights and then took it on a dangerous joyride that sent eight people to the hospital.
He later left the mangled remnants of the luxury SUV on the Belt Parkway, cops said.
With no headlights on, the maniacal motorist entered the eastbound lanes of the parkway just before 1:30 a.m. and began speeding through the light traffic, authorities said. He soon rear-ended a Mitsubishi Outlander carrying four people, causing it to run off the road and hit a wall.
The two men and two women in the Mitsubishi suffered minor injuries and were taken to Brookdale University Hospital.
But the Mercedes driver continued to cause chaos, and a more serious injury to one woman, as the SUV raced along the roadway and plowed into a second car with three young children inside.
Johanna Taylor, 59, was behind the wheel of her Honda Civic, driving home from her grandson’s birthday party with her daughter and three of her grandkids in the backseat. Taylor was taken to Jamaica Hospital in critical condition.
Her son, Lashawn Taylor, said his mom was doing better. “She’s stable now,” he said. “There’s just a whole lot of tubes in her,” he said. “And the kids are OK. They just have some bruises, but they’re gonna be OK.”
Lashawn Taylor was stunned by his mother’s brush with death following such a happy day.
“We were having fun,” he said. “It was a big party; it was our whole family and a lot of kids from the neighborhood. We had ice cream and cake and toys everywhere. Everything was all good, till they left.”
After hitting the Honda, the madman in the Mercedes tried to swerve around the chaos he caused but flipped the SUV onto its side and struck a guardrail. He got out of the crumpled car and took off.
The collisions wrecked all three vehicles. In an eerie touch, blue “Happy Birthday” napkins flitted across the highway.
All eastbound lanes on the Belt Parkway were closed as police investigated the crash into the morning.
The Mercedes was taken from outside a Crown Heights apartment building where a 26-year-old woman left it double-parked for more than an hour.
The woman, who rented the fancy ride via an online app, told police she thought she had locked the car when she went up to her apartment to change.
A push-button ignition meant the thief had no need to hot-wire the automobile.
The car is owned by a 54-year-old woman from North Bergen, N.J.