Family of Bx. woman run over by cop car to sue city
The family of a Guatemalan immigrant woman who was fatally struck by a speeding NYPD cruiser in the Bronx plans to sue the city for $20 million.
An attorney for Sofia Gomez Aguilon’s family filed a notice of claim with the city comptroller’s office on Thursday, seeking $10 million for pain and suffering and $10 million for wrongful death in the Oct. 5 crash.
Gomez Aguilonwason her way home from work around 3:25 p.m. when a marked NYPD Highway Patrol car responding to an officer’s call for help hit her in a crosswalk on Pelham Parkway South at Wallace Ave. in Allerton, officials said.
Police Officer Ceasar Munoz was accused of “failing to heed right of way” to Gomez Aquilon, “failing to observe and heed road and traffic controls and conditions” and not being “adequately skilled (and) trained to operate (the) aforesaid vehicle,” in the notice of claim.
Munoz was going upwards of 60 miles per hour when it struck the young woman, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea admitted Wednesday. He has been pulled from patrol as the NYPD’s Collision Investigation Squad probes the crash, Shea said.
Medics took Gomez Aguilon to Jacobi Medical Center in critical condition. She died three days later.
“The video of the accident shows how horrifying it must have been for Sofia,” family attorney Louis Grandelli told the Daily News on Thursday.
“She tries to run out of the way, then freezes out of fear of her impending doom,” Grandelli said. “The fact that the police officer driving didn’t see her while she clearly saw him shows that he was completely reckless for not looking out for pedestrians as he sped through a red light at a busy intersection.”
Grandelli said the slain woman’s family is still grieving her death.
“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to get a knock on the door and be told that their daughter’s dead through no fault of her own,” the attorney said.
Officer Munoz was en route to help a colleague nab Joshua Silvers, who was trying to evade arrest after speeding 75 miles per hour down the Clearview Expressway near Northern Blvd. in Queens, authorities said.
Silvers was later charged with reckless endangerment, unlawfully fleeing a police officer and driving on a suspended license.
An NYPD spokeswoman said the department “will review the lawsuit if and when we are served.” An email to the city Law Department was not immediately returned.