WHY WE FIGHT

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Mon, 03/04/2013 - 13:20

From Gothamist, March 4:

Baby Whose Parents Were Killed
in Williamsburg Hit-And-Run Has Died

The infant who was delivered prematurely after his parents were killed in a Williamsburg hit-and-run has died, according to Orthodox community leader Isaac Abraham. The child had been listed in stable condition after being delivered in the wake of the crash that killed parents Nathan and Raizy Glauber, both 21. But Abraham now says the child has died. Regarding the driver who fled the horrific scene, Abraham tells the Times, "This guy's a coward and he should pay his price."

Raizy Glauber, seven months pregnant, was not feeling well on Saturday and was being taken to the hospital by a livery cab driver shortly after midnight when the cab was struck by a grey 2010 BMW at the intersection of Kent Avenue and Wilson Street. The Times reports that "the engine of the livery car ended up in the backseat, where Raizy Glauber, who was seven months pregnant, was sitting before she was ejected, Abraham said. Her body landed under a parked tractor-trailer, said witnesses who raced to the scene after the crash. Nachman Glauber was pinned in the car, and emergency workers had to cut off the roof to get him out."

The baby was delivered by cesarean section and weighed just four pounds. The livery cab driver was treated for minor injuries and released, while the driver of the BMW and an unidentified passenger both fled the scene on foot. It's unclear if Nunez came to a full stop at the intersection before turning onto Kent, a main thoroughfare without many stop lights. "I don't remember anything," the cab driver, Pedro Nunez, tells the Daily News. Takia Walk, the registered owner of the BMW, who was not in the car, was arrested yesterday and charged with insurance fraud, the Times reports.

"God is punishing me for my sins by taking away my daughter," Raizy Glauber’s father, Yitzchak Silberstein, said in Yiddish at the couple’s funeral Sunday afternoon, according to the News. "Nobody knows how this could happen." Abraham says the newborn’s body will be named, circumcised and buried with the parents.

Oh please stop, Yitzchak. God is not punishing you for your sins. And we know exactly how this could happen. The pathological car culture. Every day, we see ads on TV featuring cars zooming at breakneck speed as a symbol of freedom and power, and chase scenes in action movies with carnage presented as entertainment. And then we're supposed to be shocked when stuff like this happens in real life?

Think!

See more reasons WHY WE FIGHT.
 



Justice in Williamsburg "accident"?

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Fri, 03/08/2013 - 02:01.

Absolutely amazing. AP reports that the driver in the above the incident has actually been carged with "vehicular manslaughter"—and held without bail.

How could this happen? Because an unborn baby was killed?


WHY WE FIGHT

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Fri, 03/08/2013 - 19:37.

When, when, when, when will we say "enough is enough"? If we can ban assault rifles why on Earth can't we ban cars? From Gothamist, March 5:

According to the NYPD, the cop car that killed 24-year-old Japanese student Ryo Oyamada in Queens last month had its "emergency lights activated" at the time of impact. But at least one witness says he saw neither flashing lights nor heard a siren activated on the patrol car before it slammed into Oyamada, and that the NYPD bears far more responsibility for the fatal crash than Oyamada's distraught familyhas been led to believe.

Chuck Johnson, who works at Queensbridge sports lounge PDG Variety Store, tells us he saw Oyamada leaving a neighboring deli at 40th Street and 10th Ave, right before he was hit by the patrol car. "He came out of the store and by the time I turned back around... he was on the ground dead in 35, 40 seconds," Johnson told us. And though the police report states that the patrol car in question had its "emergency lights activated" at the time of the accident, Johnson insists that wasn't the case. "They never had sirens on," Johnson said. "They didn't put sirens on until two more patrol cars put on their sirens. There were no overhead lights on, none."

Johnson thinks the car was traveling upwards of 70 miles per hour, and he tells us it's common to see cop cruisers speeding in his neighborhood. "We've been talking about these officers, they're the same officers that race around the neighborhood in their police car," Johnson told us. "The speed this guy was going, you can get to the same spot at 30 miles an hour. Why do you have to be going 70 miles an hour in a residential neighborhood?"


 

WHY WE FIGHT

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Mon, 04/01/2013 - 19:32.

From the New York Post, April 1:

Mother in coma doesn’t know son is brain-dead after traffic accident in Brooklyn
A 2-year-old boy hurt when a car jumped a Brooklyn sidewalk is likely brain-dead — and his mother doesn’t even know, relatives said yesterday.

Wendy McLein, 37, was in a semicoma at Kings County Hospital, according to family members, who said her son, Denim, was brain-dead.

They were injured with 10 others when a car wiped them out at an East Flatbush bus stop Saturday evening.

Cops said the driver passed a breath-alcohol test and would not be charged.

She told investigators that her brakes failed before she plowed through a red light and jumped the sidewalk at Church and Utica avenues at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

Little Denim’s aunt, Dierdra McCorkle, 51, wailed and fell to the floor when she got the news about her nephew.

“I’m devastated,” she said yesterday. “Why couldn’t God take me and let him live his life longer?”

McCorkle described Denim as a “bright kid” who learned quickly and loved to eat. She said the mom will be devastated when she learns the news.

“This is going to kill her,” McCorkle said. “Oh, my God.”


Once again, the grief of the survivors is presented merely as deconextualized pornography. When will it be recognized that this kind of journalism is mere exploitation, and that these casualties are victims of a political system, not of "accidents"?

No, you are not safe in the crosswalk

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Wed, 04/03/2013 - 15:06.

From the New York Times, April 2:

Pedestrians struck by cars are most often hit while in the crosswalk, with the signal on their side.

Taxicabs pose a disproportionate threat to cyclists, who often compete for the same sliver of curbside roadway....

These are among the findings of a medical study of injured pedestrians and cyclists in the city, conducted by a team of trauma surgeons, emergency physicians and researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center.

From December 2008 to June 2011, the group studied more than 1,400 pedestrians and cyclists treated at Bellevue Hospital Center after collisions. Most occurred in Manhattan and western Brooklyn, stretching along the busiest corridors of a city where street safety and traffic engineering have been trumpeted as defining legacies of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's tenure...

One harrowing take-away from the report is that no area, it seems, can be entirely safe. Six percent of pedestrians were injured while on a sidewalk. Of those injured on the street, 44 percent used a crosswalk, with the signal, compared with 23 percent who crossed midblock and 9 percent who crossed against the signal.