Man killed while walking on Newfield
Police identified the pedestrian as 72-year-old Erwin Reich
STAMFORD — A 72year-old city man was struck and killed by a driver Thursday morning, according to police.
The accident happened around 5:50 a.m. Thursday in the northbound lane of Newfield Avenue, said police Sgt. Jeffrey Booth, of the department’s Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Squad.
The pedestrian was identified by police as Erwin Reich. Booth said investigators believe Reich was walking adjacent to the northbound lane of Newfield Avenue when he was hit by a vehicle headed north.
Reich was taken by medics to Stamford Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The woman who hit the man — identified by police as a 62-year-old Stamford resident — stopped and
called 911, and she is cooperating with the investigation, Booth said.
“The woman claimed that she did not see the man until she hit him,” he said.
The accident is under investigation and the information gathered will be turned over to the Stamford State’s Attorney’s Office, which will decide whether criminal charges will be filed, Booth said.
“We don’t know if the car went off the roadway or the (pedestrian) was in the road when he was hit,” Booth said, pointing out that it was early in the investigation.
A stretch of Newfield Avenue was closed Thursday morning in the area of Gray Farms Road as police investigated the accident scene.
The man’s death marks the first fatal pedestrian accident of the year in Stamford.
Last year, the first fatal pedestrian accident in the city occurred on Nov. 13, 2019, when Nancy Flores, 60, a Target employee, was struck and killed as she was crossing Washington Boulevard at Tresser Boulevard, according to police.
Four months later, Courtney Sabia, 24, the driver of the vehicle that struck Flores, was charged with negligent homicide with a motor vehicle, police said. Sabia has pleaded not guilty, and the case is pending at the Stamford
courthouse, according to court documents.
Anyone with information on Thursday’s crash is asked to call 203-977-4712.
jnickerson @stamfordadvocate.com