FATAL SWERVE
Secret Service agent tried to avoid victim
A SECRET SERVICE agent who ran down and killed a Brooklyn mother of five as she was crossing a busy intersection swerved to avoid hitting the woman, police said Friday.
But Maria Tripp, 47, ran into the path of his car.
“She tries to go back towards the center lane,” a police source said. “He swerves but she ran into the direction of where he swerves to, the center lane, and is struck.”
The deadly accident at an intersection in the Ocean Hill neighborhood was captured on videotape. The driver, identified by sources as Felton Joseph, was not charged with a crime.
Joseph remained at the scene after the crash Thursday and tested negative for alcohol. He also has a clean driving record, sources said.
Meanwhile, Tripp’s family gathered at the dead woman’s Bedford-stuyvesant home to grieve.
Tripp was struck while crossing Atlantic Ave. at Ralph Ave. with her 12-year-old daughter, a 19-year-old nephew and an- other relative, police said. The family was in the crosswalk, but they were crossing against the light, police said.
The group was trying to get to the roadway under the Long Island Rail Road tracks in the center of Atlantic Ave. and had started crossing the street when they spotted Joseph, heading northbound in a 2009 Chevrolet sedan.
Tripp’s nephew yanked her daughter out of harm’s way and along with the other relative they made it to the roadway be- neath the LIRR. Tripp did not. She bolted in the other direction and the Chevy barreled into her.
The Secret Service confirmed the agent was indeed “on the job” at the time of the accident, but did not divulge what he was doing.
Tripp was taken to Interfaith Hospital where she died, police said.