Killed while mommy tied her shoes
Unspeakable heartbreak as girl, 4, hit by SUV pulling out of Brooklyn laundromat
Adorable 4-year-old Luz Gonzalez was crushed under the wheels of an SUV as her mother helped her put on a shoe that had fallen off. The mom said the driver “has to pay.”
A grieving mother wants the driver of the SUV that killed her little girl “to pay” for what she did.
Reyna Candia, whose 4-year-old daughter was fatally struck by an SUV outside a Brooklyn laundromat, is stunned that police haven’t charged the driver who they say was unaware she’d run over two people.
“She had to know,” said Candia, who was injured in the accident that took the life of her daughter Luz Gonzalez.
“I want her to pay,” Candia, 39, told the Daily News. “The person who did this, she has to pay.”
The accident happened on Hart St. near Wyckoff Ave. outside Bushwick’s Heaven Scent Laundry after the child lost a shoe while riding her scooter.
“She told me, ‘Mommy I lost my shoe,’ ” Candia said. “She went back and grabbed the shoe, and I sat down with her to put (it) on, on the sidewalk.”
The 38-year-old driver then backed up before lurching forward out of the spot, striking Luz and her mother with the passenger-side front bumper, police said.
The little girl was crushed under the SUV’s front and rear passenger-side tires.
Medics rushed Luz, who suffered severe trauma to her chest and torso, to nearby Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, but she could not be saved. Her family lives just a few blocks from where she was struck, cops said.
Candia was treated for cuts to her left leg at the same hospital where her daughter died. The mother was in stable condition, officials said.
“She was 4 years old and 4 months,” Candia said. “She was a very pretty, funny and smart girl.”
The family is from Guerrero, Mexico. Family members are trying to arrange for the child to be buried there.
Luz — Candia’s only daughter — was the youngest of five children. Her older brothers are all teenagers.
“I’m completely destroyed,” Candia said. The driver of the SUV was pulled over a few blocks from the deadly collision, which occurred about 4:30 p.m. on Sunday. She has not been charged or given a summons, cops said Monday. The number of pedestrians killed by motorists has declined over the past five years, according to the city Department of Transportation. It 2013, 184 New Yorkers were killed by cars. That number dipped to 140 in 2014 and to 139 in 2015. In 2016, the total jumped up to 148 before dropping to 107 in 2017. So far in 2018, 44 pedestrians have been killed by drivers. That’s three fewer fatalities than the city had seen by this point last year. In total, auto fatalities citywide have dropped every year since 2013, when 299 people were killed in crashes. In 2017, only 222 pedestrians, cyclists, motorcycle riders and motor vehicle occupants died in roadway accidents.
Still, Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Paul Steely White says there’s more work to be done, starting with the state Legislature voting to continue the city’s schoolbased speed safety program, set to expire July 25. White says an expiration of the program would lead to more children like Luz being run down by motorists.
“Less than 48 hours after Republicans in the state Senate announced their callous plan to terminate the program, 4-year-old Luz Gonzalez has been killed in a hit-and-run crash in Brooklyn," White said.
Mayor de Blasio also blasted GOP state lawmakers for ending their six-month session early last week without voting to renew the initiative.