Cop-car hit fatal
Family stung after immig dies days after strike
Just two months into her pursuit of a better life in the U.S., a Bronx resident from Guatemala died of injuries she suffered when she was struck by a marked NYPD car in a horrifying caught-oncamera crash, police and family said Friday.
Sofia Gomez Aguilon, 20, was on her way home from work around 3:25 p.m. Monday when a marked police car responding to an officer’s call for help hit her in a crosswalk on Pelham Parkway South at Wallace Ave. in Allerton.
The cops were headed to aid colleagues in a confrontational car stop on the Whitestone Bridge. Gomez was several blocks from her home in Pelham Parkway.
The unconscious woman was rushed to Jacobi Hospital in critical condition. She succumbed to her injuries Thursday evening.
Gomez Aguilon, who came to the city to help provide for her parents back in Guatemala, was hit just after she finished her shift at a White Plains bakery. She was heading home to the apartment she shared with her sister, Maria Gomez.
“She was a quiet, hardworking girl,” Gomez told the Daily News. “This loss is very difficult for our family. We are destroyed.”
A witness at the scene told The News that the police cruiser had its sirens on, but was speeding through the intersection where Gomez Aguilon was struck.
One of the victim’s heartbroken cousins suggested the young woman
— who is from a small village outside San Marcos, in southwestern Guatemala — may not have recognized the sirens.
Another cousin, Roberto Perez, demanded answers.
“The police were speeding and they ran a red light,” said Perez. “They should have slowed down.”
“Like all of us, she came to America for a better life, to help her family and realize her dreams,” Perez continued. “We want justice.”
Police were continuing to investigate the crash.