HACK SHOCK
A GRANDFATHER working as a livery cab driver died early Sunday after crashing his car in Greenwich Village — minutes after an angry pedestrian struck him in the head with a hockey stick, cops said.
Randolph Tolk, 68, was driving a 2010 Toyota Camry south on 11th Ave. just before midnight Saturday. He stopped at W. 20th St., stepped out of the car and got into a fight with 39-year-old Kohji Kosugi, police said. Before running off, Kosugi allegedly whacked Tolk in the head with a hockey stick, knocking him to the ground.
Tolk, of West New York, N.J., got back in his car and continued down 11th Ave. for about seven blocks before crashing into a center divider at West and Horatio Sts., police said.
EMS crews rushed him to a nearby hospital, where he died.
Cops arrested Kosugi on Sunday and charged him with manslaughter. The city medical examiner’s office will determine the cause of Tolk’s death.
The victim’s son said his Brooklyn-born dad was a doting grandfather to three tots and a fiercely loyal New Yorker.
Andrew Tolk said he’d pleaded with his father to move closer to him in Las Vegas, but he’d refused to leave the area.
“He couldn’t leave New York,” said the 31-year-old son. “The man is obsessed with New York.”
Tolk graduated from the University of Miami and enjoyed a long career in the garment industry before he lost his job in 2000. He began driving on and off for Uber and livery companies, the younger Tolk told the Daily News.
“He would put everyone else before himself,” he said. “I’m numb.”
Kosugi describes himself as a doctor on his LinkedIn.com profile. An online records check did not reveal a license to practice medicine in his name in New York State. His name does appear on research papers by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center staff.
The New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers had offered a $1,000 reward for information about the lethal assault.
“The attacker is a coward and should be in jail,” said spokesman Fernando Mateo. “We always advise our drivers not to get out of their vehicles and avoid confrontations with anyone, but we don’t know what led to this tragedy.”