Woman: Killer driver could’ve been stopped
BRANDY WILLIAMS says her damaged shoulder, ankle and wrist are painful proof that the Staten Island driver who mowed down two young children at a Brooklyn intersection could have been stopped before the tragedy.
Williams said the driver, Dorothy Bruns, was a terror behind the wheel long before she killed a 1-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl on March 5 in Park Slope after blowing a red light.
Six months earlier, Bruns struck Williams in Long Island City, running over her foot and injuring her wrist. Then Bruns callously sped away, according to Williams.
NYPD housing officers took a report from Williams shortly after the Sept. 13 incident. She gave them an account of what happened and the license plate number of Bruns’ white Volvo.
But even with the information, Williams said, police dropped the ball. They never followed up with her or tried to track down Bruns.
“If they had done what they were supposed to do, maybe they could have stopped her,” Williams, 28, told the Daily News in her first interview about the incident. “Maybe this (Park Slope) accident would not have happened.”
The News reported last month that a highway safety sergeant in the NYPD’s 114th Precinct never filled out the proper paperwork in connection with the September incident. If the sergeant had, then detectives would have taken a closer look at Bruns — and possibly her driving history.
After Bruns killed baby Joshua Lew and toddler Abigail Blumenstein in the March 5 crash, the NYPD reviewed her record and discovered the Queens incident.
The sergeant, Cynthia Rodriguez, was stripped of her traffic duties and now does patrols in a squad car. Internal Affairs is investigating the screw-up.
“They had the license plates. They didn’t even run it at the time,” Williams’ lawyer, Bruce Cantin, said of the police. “We ran them and it came back with (Bruns’) name.”
Williams, a technician at the Queensbridge Houses, said that after Bruns struck her, she needed shoulder surgery and now wears braces on her back and wrist.
“I need a lot more therapy to get better. I’m going to be out of work for a year and a half,” she said.
She feels even worse for the two young victims in the March crash.
“I consider myself lucky. My condolences to the families of those little kids,” she said. “I feel so lucky I didn’t get more hurt or killed.”
Williams recalled that at 10 a.m. on Sept. 13 she was crossing Vernon St. in Long Island City, Queens, while talking to her wife on the phone during her work break.
“Before I could even turn around, a lady in a parked car told me to watch it,” she said. “But it was too late. She had already hit me.”
Williams said seemed surprised.
“She was like, ‘Oh My God!’ ” Williams recalled.
“She rolled down her window. She never got out. She stuck out her head. She asked me if I was OK. I didn’t get a chance to answer. She took off.”
Williams said her co-worker began yelling, “Write down her license plate number! Write down her license plate number! And (the driver) just took off.”
Williams, who lives in East Orange, the driver N.J., said she managed to get the plate and type the number in her phone.
Two cops showed up to take her statement, but Williams said she didn’t sense any urgency from them and never heard them radio the plate number to track down the driver.
“After I gave my statement, I haven’t heard from them,” Williams said. “They said they’d contact me if they needed any more information.”
Williams provided The News a copy of the police accident report, which indeed shows she provided the plate number of Bruns’ Volvo.
But police only contacted Williams after the March 5 crash. A detective called her to see if she could identify Bruns in a line-up.
“I said sure. But it never got that far,” Williams said.
She was shocked when she read media coverage of the Park Slope crash.
“I went and looked a my paperwork and said, ‘That’s her!’ ” Williams said.
She recalled Bruns looked younger and had blond hair in September.
Cantin said they are seeking $100,000 from Bruns’ car insurer. He said that he is currently gathering more documents but Williams plans to sue. “Technically, I think she committed a crime, leaving the scene of an accident,” Cantin said of Bruns in regard to the September run-in. “It sounds like she’s pretty reckless.”
Bruns, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, had a seizure before she crashed her car in Park Slope on March 5, according to investigators.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office is weighing whether to bring criminal charges against her for the fatal crash.
The News reported on Tuesday that Bruns had a medical emergency three days before the March 5 crash, with a medical crew responding to her home after a 911 call about cardiac arrest, according to FDNY sources.
Paramedics also came to her apartment in December and November. She was also on medical leave from her job during the month of January.
Investigators are trying to determine whether Bruns’ doctors had instructed her to stop driving before the March crash.
Williams said police should have stopped her long ago from getting behind a wheel.
“She should not have been on the road,” she said.