Aurilla Lawrence
New York City, d. 28.February.2019,
hit and run by oil tanker.
Aurilla Lawrence was a much loved, very experienced New York City
bike messenger who was hit and killed by the driver of an oil
tanker who was passing her. The driver did not stop. Instead he fled
the scene. Police were able to find the driver but did not lay any
charges.
RIP to one of the sweetest people on/off the
bike. Anyone who
knew her knows just how badass and kind she was. I am so deeply
heartbroken.
Aurilla Gorilla Lawrence 1993 - 2019 Aurilla Lawrence - Edward Lee
I met you when you first came to Ny I would
genuinely be
happy whenever i would ruN into u on the road 1 of the few to
actually put a
smile on my face Whenever i see her! that pretty smile of yours
will be missed
out here we love u Aurilla Lawrence you will never be forgotten 💔😢
#RideInParadise we definitely have an Angel watching over us 💔😭
#SeeYouAtTheCrossRoadz #AurillaGorilla #RideWithTheAngels - Juan
Garcia
I am sadden by the lost of our sister Aurilla
Lawrence.
Heaven just pick up Angel. As I am lost for words to say. Ride
Forever
#messlife @ New York, New York - Kurt Boone
💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
Another Tremendous Loss!!!!!! 😢😢😢😢😢
So much Pain to know Now that what I saw on T.V. This Morning
would be A Great
Young Lady who touched a lot of hearts in the Messenger community
and always
had a great Smile would be taken from us!!!! You will be missed
and talked
about tremendously Aurilla!! Meet up with Lareal Esa and ride with
the rest of
the angels 🙌🏽👸🏽🙌🏽
You Girls Will always be Queens!!!! - Fernando Rivera
Been trying to wrap my head around this all
day.. i never
thought last night would be the last time ever seeing Aurilla
Lawrence .. i was
amped when you started chilling with our girl gang and i will
never forget our
first sleep over at Laila’s .. i will hold that night in my heart
forever ..
you were fierce, full of life and someone we will remember
forever.. it makes
me sick how you had to go and we will get justice for your honor 💕
RIP - Diane Tarus
I have been working with FFSS . This is
the letter I have written for publication. I am sharing this with
everyone, so we are all on track for justice for Aurilla , and
Vision Zero . Please read and share:
On February 28, 2019, my daughter Aurilla Lawrence was struck by an
oil tanker truck near the intersection of Broadway and Rodney Street
in Brooklyn. The driver attempted to pass Aurilla and came back in
on her causing her to lose control. She ended up under the wheels of
his truck.
This driver took my daughters life, and he didn’t even stop. He left
her to die, alone on the street as he continued on his way.
Aurilla loved to ride and was well-known in the New York City
cycling community. It became her life, inspired her passions and
helped her to connect with people from every walk of life. Aurilla
was a very skilled cyclist. She knew how to handle herself and her
bike, which was practically an extension of herself.
I have read that there have been talks of bicycle lanes being placed
in the area where Aurilla was killed. My only question is, why has
this not been done yet? I’m sure many other families have the same
question as well.
My daughter wasn’t the only person struck in this area. Action must
be taken.
Far too many families have had to bury a loved one this year because
of unsafe streets and reckless drivers. Nothing will bring her back,
but at the very least mayor de Blasio ought to be doing everything
in his power to make sure nobody else’s family has to go through
what mine has.
But they’re doing the opposite. I was furious to learn that the
morning after Aurilla was killed police were out giving tickets to
bicyclists on the same block where she was struck. The truck driver
killed my daughter and fled the scene, so why were the police out on
the street treating cyclists like criminals? Did Mayor de Blasio not
understand that many of these cyclists who were being targeted were
actually headed to a memorial ride in honor of Aurilla?
People on bikes aren’t the ones maiming and killing people— it’s the
cars and trucks. So maybe the mayor should tell the police to use
their resources more wisely by making sure the worst drivers have a
harder time getting behind the wheel. It doesn’t seem right that
drivers who kill people should be able to continue to put their
fellow New Yorkers in danger .
It’s also time to stop making excuses for dangerous streets. Since
the street where my daughter was killed is missing a bike lane, and
if it seems like putting up a bike lane would prevent somebody
else’s daughter from getting killed, it’s probably time to put in a
bike lane. Seems pretty straightforward.
A few years ago Aurilla wrote on her Facebook page that “biking
taught me that you should have no hesitation when it comes to
believing in your movements. Sometimes I feel like poetry in
motion.”
It’s impossible to feel that way if you live in fear that you might
get run down every time you get on your bike. But Aurilla was a
fearless bicyclist. Mayor de Blasio, please honor her by being a
fearless mayor and doing everything you can to eliminate all this
senseless death.
Kenny Lawrence is a member of Families for Safe Streets, which is
rallying on May 7 on the steps of City Hall to demand the mayor take
action to get Vision Zero back on track. - Kenny Lawrence
Police Report on Aurilla’s death:
"On Thursday, February 28, 2019, at approximately 2336 hours, police
responded to a 911 call of a motor vehicle collision involving a
bicyclist struck on Broadway, west of Rodney Street, within the
confines of the 90 Precinct. Upon arrival, officers observed a
25-year-old female bicyclist, unconscious and unresponsive, lying on
the roadway with trauma about the body. EMS responded to the
location and pronounced the aided female deceased at the scene.
Further investigation by the NYPD Highway District's Collision
Investigation Squad determined that a vehicle, described as a grey
or silver tanker-type vehicle, was traveling eastbound on Broadway,
approaching Rodney Street, when the vehicle struck the bicyclist,
who was also traveling eastbound on Broadway. Upon striking the
bicyclist and driving over her, the vehicle continued eastbound on
Broadway, effectively fleeing the scene. There are no arrests and
the investigation remains ongoing."
Cops: We Have a Lead in Fatal Williamsburg Hit-and-Run
By Julianne Cuba
StreetsBlog NYC, March 4, 2019
Police claim they have a solid lead on the motorist who hit and
killed 25-year-old Aurilla Lawrence in Williamsburg last week, and
are bringing a suspect in for questioning as they continue the
investigation.
NYPD Chief of Transportation Thomas Chan told reporters on Monday
that investigators had identified “a vehicle of interest, also a
driver of interest” in the Thursday night hit-and-run crash on
Broadway near Rodney Street in a particularly dangerous stretch of
the neighborhood near the Williamsburg Bridge and the
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
“We have scheduled this individual to come in and be interview by
our detectives, and it is currently under investigation,” Chan
added. “We’re in the process of looking for any additional video and
also witnesses.”
Chan did not release the motorist’s name or even if he is suspected
of killing Lawrence in the Feb. 28 crash. The driver behind the
wheel of a silver tanker truck that rolled over Lawrence’s body, and
then fled.
The news of a suspect comes after cyclists lashed out against New
York’s Finest for again targeting them in the wake of the fatality.
Chan denied that officers from Williamsburg’s 90th Precinct
specifically targeted cyclists in their post-crash ticketing spree,
which is also known as the “72-hour plan.” He said 32 tickets had
been written to drivers and only one to a cyclist.
“In terms of enforcement, normally when we have a fatality at any
location in the city involving a vehicle and things of that nature
we will conduct a 72-hour enforcement plan at that particular
location,” he said. “In the 72-hour plan we issued 33 summonses, one
summons was issued to a bicyclist.”
Local Council Member Antonio Reynoso defended the 90th Precinct as
one that knows that cyclists are not to blame for their own deaths,
but he also complained that other commands are not so enlightened.
“I want to be very clear. Blitzing does exist and is a huge
problem,” said Reynoso tweeted, a reference to the crackdown on
cyclists that occurred most recently in Midtown Manhattan, where
cops ticketed cyclists for not wearing a helmet, which is not
against the law, and bicycling outside a bike lane. Another cop
tackled a cyclist to stop him in an attempt to give him a ticket.
Reynoso instead put the blame on Mayor de Blasio for unfairly and
disproportionately targeting bike riders — who did not kill a single
person in New York City in 2018 while drivers killed 201 — as part
of a misplaced effort to make the streets safer.
“I think it speaks to misguided and poor transportation policy by
Mayor. But the @NYPD90Pct is an exception,” he said.
Streetsblog asked NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill whether cops fully
understand the difference between 3,000-pound cars and 50-pound
bicycles, and whether they are keeping score of the fatal carnage
last year: drivers 201, cyclists 0.
“They are, as a matter of fact,” said O’Neill. “They all go to
traffic stat. [But] we do conduct enforcement, we do have to make
sure everybody drives safely and rides safely.”
— with Gersh Kuntzman
Cyclist’s hit-and-run death spurs outcry from
bike messengers, calls for street safety improvements
“Riding a bicycle on the street should not be a death
sentence”
By Dave Colon
Curbed, March 5, 2019
Five days after bike messenger Aurilla Lawrence was killed by a
truck driver in a hit-and-run on Broadway and Rodney Street in
Williamsburg, her friends in the tight-knit messenger community,
joined by street safety activists and local elected officials, held
a vigil at the site of the crash.
“Aurilla was a gem, a light, a ray of sunshine,” said Lawrence’s
friend Genesiss M. “She touched the lives of so many of us, we’re at
a loss she’s gone. We still don’t believe it.”
The mourners and activists also used the memorial as an opportunity
to call for faster street safety improvements, and to demand the
NYPD stop its well-documented practice of ticket blitzes against
cyclists when bikers are killed by drivers.
“What happened to Aurilla could have happened to anyone in the
city,” Erwin Figuroa, a senior organizer at Transportation
Alternatives, told the crowd. “Riding a bicycle on the street should
not be a death sentence.”
Monday’s vigil was the third public action memorializing Lawrence,
following the installation of a ghost bike in her honor on Friday
afternoon, and a group ride from Harlem to Williamsburg on Sunday.
The crowd of about 30 messengers mourned with activists from
Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets, along
with City Council Member Antonio Reynoso, all of whom pledged that
Lawrence’s death wouldn’t be in vain amid cries of “We want justice”
and “You don’t need parking” from the crowd.
Figueroa noted that the city had seen a spike in cyclist deaths
since the calendar turned to 2019; that list includes Lawrence,
along with cyclists Hugo Garcia, Suan Moses, and Joseph Chiam. “That
is half the total [of cyclists killed] in all of 2018, in two
months,” Transportation Alternatives North Brooklyn activist
community chair Phil Leff, told the crowd. “This is not just a
worrying trend; this is an urgent public health crisis.”
Leff laid the responsibility for the spike at the travel-heavy feet
of Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Mister Mayor, wherever you are, what’s
your excuse? Why aren’t we making the proven changes we need to our
streets?” Leff asked.
A number of speakers, including Figueroa and Reynoso, noted that
Broadway between Kent and New York avenues was deemed a priority
corridor under Vision Zero back in 2015, due to the street’s history
of pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities. But to look at
the street today, one would be hard-pressed to notice any major
changes.
“How a prioritized street doesn’t get fixed in four years is beyond
me,” Reynoso said. “How officers can come and ticket cyclists after
one of their own has died is completely beyond me. It is a mayor
that is completely disconnected with basic progressive
transportation policy. He believes that he is making progress
because there were only 200 deaths last year. We should only be
celebrating when there are actually zero deaths.”
The council member said that despite one member of the 90th Precinct
ticketing a cyclist following the crash, he contacted the precinct’s
commanding officer to make sure the 90th was not out hunting bike
riders. But Reynoso also noted the reality of ticket blitzes as a
byproduct of a mayor who recently insisted the post-crash ticketing
of cyclists was necessary enforcement.
“It absolutely happens. It’s a big problem,” Reynoso told Curbed.
“The city’s done a poor job at being able to have a thoughtful and
comprehensive understanding of why [fatal crashes] happen and how
they are preventable. And at the end of the day, the victims end up
being the cyclists in crashes and deaths, and then enforcement
after.”
Reynoso told the crowd he’d be meeting with the Department of
Transportation to go over what it can do to improve safety on
Broadway, and also vowed to “break car culture,” a line that Council
speaker Corey Johnson also used in his State of the City address on
Tuesday.
“This is the first prioritized site in Community Board 1 that gets
done before the end of this year. Let’s get it done right away in
[Lawrence’s] memory,” Reynoso said. He also demanded CB1 members not
slow down the street redesign efforts.
“I don’t want one community board getting in the way of any of these
changes,” he said. “This is not about anecdotes; this is about data
and safety. We don’t need the city of New York to have to go to
people who are not experts to design these streets.”
Kelsey Leigh, another of Lawrence’s friends, noted that working
cyclists bear a tougher enforcement burden than most, even under
Vision Zero. “We know the mayor doesn’t care about us. The NYPD
doesn’t care about us,” sh said. “They’re so quick to act, the next
day after a cyclist’s death, handing out tickets to working
cyclists, commuters, anybody they can get their hands on. Meanwhile
you have big, huge trucks roaming all over the city in every nook
and cranny, racking up tickets. And who pays? They don’t pay. The
city excuses their fines by thousands and thousands of dollars”—a
reference to the stipulated fine program—“and they crack down on
cyclists.”
The city has in fact made progress on the traffic fatality front,
but it wasn’t enough to save Lawrence’s life—or make the gathered
cyclists feel like the city or the police had their best interests
in mind. “The mayor needs to do a better job, he has to take our
lives seriously. We’re not just bikes, we are humans on bikes,”
Genesiss said.
Lawrence’s death also brought to the fore a weariness with not only
the mayor and the NYPD, but the prevailing attitude among drivers
toward cyclists in New York.
“Frankly, we know that nobody fuckin’ cares,” Bloom, a courier,
said. “They say they’re gonna do stuff, and they do sometimes, but
then look at Grand Street,” Bloom said about the recently built bike
lane on the Williamsburg street. “Grand Street is a disaster; they
put in a bike lane and now it’s parking and random construction.
It’s hard for us to believe in the NYPD and the council members and
everybody in charge of doing this stuff. I think it’s a culture
thing. People in cars needs to respect us.”
But despite those challenges, the cyclists and activists vowed to
keep up the fight for safe streets—a fight that’s undertaken for
every victim of traffic violence, a roster that now includes Aurilla
Lawrence.
“We will keep fighting for her, we will be optimistic,” Leigh told
the crowd. “We won’t stop riding for her, we won’t be afraid. We
will be riding in her honor.”
Bike Messenger Community Mourns Cyclist Killed In Hit-And-Run: 'She
Was The Baddest Woman I Ever Met'
BY JAKE OFFENHARTZ
Gothamist, March 1,2019
Aurilla Lawrence, a 25-year-old bicycle messenger, was fatally
struck by a truck driver in Williamsburg on Thursday night. The
driver fled the scene, police said, and had not been located as of
Friday evening.
Lawrence was riding eastbound on Broadway near Rodney Street at
11:30 p.m. last night, when a gas tank truck driver struck her and
drove off, according to authorities. She was pronounced dead at the
scene.
Known to friends as "Aurilla Gorilla," Lawrence was part of a
tight-knit community of bike messengers, many of whom remembered her
as a warm-hearted confidante and fiercely committed rider. On Friday
evening, fellow couriers gathered under the Marcy Avenue J/M station
to pay respects in front of a makeshift memorial and newly-erected
ghostbike.
"She inspired me. She could be soft and friendly, but she wouldn't
take shit from anyone," recalled Kelsey, a friend who said she'd
been riding with Lawrence for years. "There are so few woman bike
messengers and we do our best to stick together. She was so fucking
tough."
Carolina Ruiz, an Alphabet City resident, told Gothamist that she'd
run into Lawrence on the Williamsburg Bridge just hours before her
death. "I got to talk to her for a minute and give her a big hug,"
said Ruiz. "I told her to come to East River Bar later, but she
never showed up."
Ruiz added, "She was the type of person who made friends with
everyone. She was the baddest woman I ever met."
Toni Rodriguez, another bike messenger, said he'd known Lawrence was
the victim of the crash even before her name was released, because
he recognized her bike from a photo published in the Daily News. "We
were just talking yesterday," he told Gothamist. "I saw the bike and
I thought, 'That’s Aurilla.' I couldn't believe it."
Several people in attendance Friday expressed anger at the NYPD for
their habit of ticketing cyclists after fatal crashes, and about the
way Lawrence's death was covered in the press; multiple outlets
reported that police were still determining whether the truck driver
had realized he'd hit the cyclist.
"My first thought, unfortunately, is that [the NYPD] were going to
find a way to make this her fault," said Carla N, a former bike
messenger. "She's not a cat, she's a person. You don't just run over
a person and not realize it."
Mario Sepulveda, another close friend of the victim, echoed the
frustration, adding: "If you get hit at 25 miles-per-hour, there's a
very good chance you'll live. But people don't drive the speed
limit, and the cops end up ticketing us when it's them who are
careless...Lawrence didn't ride crazy like that."
The tragedy marks at least the fifth cyclist to be killed this
year—compared to 10 cyclist deaths in all of 2018—and the fourth to
be killed in Brooklyn. Cyclist injuries appear to up as well:
according to data maintained by NYPD, there have been 379 cyclist
injuries in 2019, compared to 351 at this point last year.
The stretch of Broadway near the Williamsburg Bridge has long been a
dangerous corridor for pedestrians and cyclists. An analysis
released last summer by the website Localize.city found that
Williamsburg had the highest number of crashes involving pedestrians
and cyclists in the city; a more recent report found that three of
the city's most dangerous intersections for cyclists were in the
vicinity of the Williamsburg Bridge.
While the Department of Transportation was expected to make a number
of street safety upgrades to the area ahead of the L train shutdown,
it's unclear whether those improvements will go forward under the
revised plan.
In a statement, Transportation Alternatives Interim Director Marco
Conner noted: “Broadway, which lacks protected bike lanes, is far
from ideal for traveling on two wheels. When a driver makes one bad
move on a street like Broadway, where there's no room for error,
people die. This is the sad reality of biking in New York City in
2019. “
“But it doesn't have to be this way," Conner added. “We're calling
on Mayor de Blasio to direct his Department of Transportation to
guarantee a safe route for all New Yorkers who bike by building out
a true, connected network of protected bike lanes with an
accelerated timeline for doing so, with a priority on the areas
which will be most heavily impacted by the forthcoming L Train
service disruptions."
We've reached out to the Mayor's Office, and we'll update if we hear
back.
'F*cking Crazy': No Charges For Truck Driver Who
Killed 25-Year-Old Cyclist Aurilla Lawrence
BY JAKE OFFENHARTZ
Gothamist, August 16, 2019
Nearly six months after a hit-and-run truck driver fatally struck
Aurilla Lawrence, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office has
announced that the motorist will not face charges.
In a statement, a spokesperson for D.A. Eric Gonzalez said that
there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges in the case:
"The investigation found no signs of contact between the truck and
the bike, and that the likely proximate cause of the crash was a
large crater on the roadway, which caused the victim to fall before
being struck."
Lawrence, a 25-year-old bike messenger, was riding eastbound on
Broadway near the Williamsburg Bridge when she was run over by the
driver of a gas tank truck on February 28th. After completing their
investigation, the prosecutors said that they determined "there was
no evidence to indicate that the driver, who continued his delivery
route, was aware of what happened, which is the legal standard for a
leaving the scene charge."
"We will continue to investigate every traffic fatality in Brooklyn
and will pursue criminal charges whenever they are supported by the
evidence and the law," the statement continued.
Of the 19 cyclists killed on city streets this year—the highest
total since Mayor Bill de Blasio launched the Vision Zero street
safety initiative in 2014—14 of the deaths have come in Brooklyn.
None of the drivers involved in the Brooklyn fatalities have faced
criminal charges. (Two drivers have been charged in the deadly
crashes that occurred outside the borough this year.)
"This is fucking crazy," said Shardy Nieves, a longtime bike
messenger and close friend of Lawrence's. "I'm at a loss for words
right now."
"It seems like no matter what you do in a car, you can kill anyone
and it's considered an accident and you're not held accountable for
your actions," he added.
Streetsblog, which first reported the news, spoke with the victim's
sister, Kathryn, who called the situation "absolutely outrageous."
An attorney for the family, Steve Vaccaro, told the outlet that New
York State law would allow prosecutors to charge the driver with
manslaughter for recklessly causing the death of another human
being, regardless of whether intent was established.
Another lawyer who frequently represents cyclists, Daniel Flanzig,
told Gothamist there is a pattern of instances where the Brooklyn
D.A. has declined to bring charges against motorists who kill
cyclists. While the office decided not to charge the driver who
fatally struck Matthew Brenner near the Manhattan Bridge in 2017,
Flanzig ultimately found evidence that the operator was distracted
by her GPS, compelling the DMV to revoke her license.
"There are a number of cases where the D.A. did not prosecute and
did not find violations that [we found] after conducting our own
investigation," said Flanzig. "I can tell you personally that
they've dropped the ball."
A spokesperson for the D.A.'s office declined to share further
details on the record about the investigation into Lawrence's death.
Nieves said that he had doubts about the office's explanation that
she simply fell off her bike because of a pothole.
"I understand things happen, but to say someone just fell into a
crater like that—no, not from that caliber of rider. This is
somebody who works on her bike through the worst weather. She has
knowledge of the streets."
Lawrence's death, the first of two courier fatalities this year,
sparked an outpouring of support from the bike messenger community,
with friends remembering her as an infectiously warm presence, and
"the glue that held a lot of people together."
"I've never seen a loss of one person have such an impact on the New
York cycling community," said Flanzig. "The number of people who
reached out to me after she died—it's amazing how far she reached
and how much she was loved."
Nieves added that this year's cyclist death count has continued to
leave the community shaken. "I've been a bike messenger for almost
10 years and I haven't seen anything like this, where so many people
have lost their lives to careless driers and nothing is being done,"
he said.
A spokesperson for the Mayor's Office did not respond to a request
for comment.
DA Won’t Charge Hit-And-Run Driver Who Killed
Aurilla Lawrence
StreetsBlog NYC, August 16, 2019
By Dave Colon
Another hit-and-run driver will escape justice, thanks to police and
prosecutors who won’t bring charges against motorists who kill.
On Wednesday, the family of Aurilla Lawrence, the cyclist killed by
a hit-and-run truck driver on Feb. 28 in Williamsburg, learned that
the NYPD and the Brooklyn District Attorney won’t charge the driver,
once again citing insufficient evidence to convince a jury of the
fleeing driver’s recklessness.
“It’s absolutely outrageous,” said Lawrence’s sister, Kathryn, after
hearing the news. “I’m trying to wrap my head around it.”
Lawyers who are working with the Lawrence family were also angered
by the decision to absolve the truck driver because, under New York
State law, prosecutors can charge some with manslaughter when
someone “recklessly causes the death of another human.” Such
recklessness doesn’t require intent, but merely “a gross deviation
from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe
in the situation.”
“Recklessness is a state of mind not where you intend to bring about
a result, but rather as you go about your course of conduct, you
have a subjective awareness that the conduct poses a risk of harm to
others and you disregard it,” said the lawyer, Steve Vaccaro.
“Someone can have no desire to hurt a person.”
The Lawrence case presents a perfect example of just that. According
to Vaccaro, who has seen video of the nighttime crash, the truck
driver approached Lawrence from the rear, meaning he had every
opportunity to see her — and yield the right of way, which was hers.
“If the driver of the truck knows a cyclist is in front of them and
they continue to accelerate on the assumption that they get to go
first and the cyclist should have to pull off the road or find a
place to squeeze into, that is disregarding an unjustifiable risk of
great harm,” Vaccaro said. (A similar interpretation of the law led
to a conviction in a right-of-way case last year against the bus
driver who killed Citi Bike cyclist Dan Hanegby — but such
convictions are rare.)
But in the Lawrence case, authorities have not been inclined to see
it that way. Even on the night Lawrence was killed, police were
already rolling out excuses for the driver, with one source already
planting the notion that the driver didn’t know he had hit anyone.
On Thursday, a spokesperson for Brooklyn District Attorney Eric
Gonzalez office told Streetsblog that “there isn’t enough evidence
to bring criminal charges in this case.”
The spokesperson claimed that a “thorough investigation” found that
the trucker never hit Lawrence’s bike, but that she had hit a
pothole, which caused her to fall into the street, where she was run
over.
The spokesperson claimed there was no evidence that the driver, who
continued his delivery route, knew he had hit Lawrence.
Drivers routinely escape consequences for committing hit-and-runs by
telling police that they didn’t know they hit someone. In late
March, police arrested the hit-and-run driver who killed cyclist
Chaim Joseph near Times Square, but he was not charged with the more
serious count of leaving the scene. Police also declined to charge
the truck driver who killed Robyn Hightman. And the truck driver who
killed Linda Douglas in April also said the magic words to get out
of being charged.
“They frame the issue as if they have to prove intent to bring
serious charges against a driver, and that’s wrong, it’s false,”
said Peter Beadle, who works with Vaccaro. “They can bring charges
based on recklessness, which covers even manslaughter. It’s a
recklessness standard. You do not have to prove specific intent. It
would be great if we started seeing district attorneys going for
these charges. This case warrants it, but they don’t want to go
there.”
At the very least, the driver should have been charged with a
right-of-way violation, according to Beadle.
“Until district attorneys actually decide to bring these cases and
make these charges, perceptions are not going to change and the law
isn’t going to be pushed in the direction we need it to go to keep
people safe,” Beadle said, adding that the lack of charges in these
cases sends a message to drivers that “they can drive whichever way
they wish, because there are no consequences.”
The NYPD declined to comment. Mayor de Blasio did not comment
either, but Kathryn Lawrence had a message for Hizzoner.
“I don’t see how de Blasio, whose job it is to govern and protect
these citizens of New York City, can continue to see this [cyclist
body] count rise and rise and rise and he’s not doing anything,” she
said. “These drivers are facing no responsibility, they get a slap
on the wrist. You murdered somebody.
“There was not any Earthly justice that has been done for the murder
of my sister, but there is one coming from above,” she added.
.
