A 60-year-old woman was struck and killed by the driver of a blue SUV that proceeded to drive away from the scene in Jackson Heights on Thursday morning. File photo by Lloyd Mitchell
Feb. 1, 2024 By Bill Parry
A 60-year-old woman was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Jackson Heights on Thursday morning.
Police from the 115th Precinct responded to a 911 call of a vehicle collision involving a pedestrian at the intersection of 37th Avenue and 90th Street just after 6:45 a.m.
Officers found Yeny Contreras-Baquedano lying on the roadway unconscious and unresponsive. EMS transported her to Elmhurst Hospital where she was pronounced dead a short while later, police said.
A preliminary investigation by the NYPD’s Highway District Collision Investigation Squad determined that Contreras-Baquedano was walking southbound on 90th Street, one block away from her home on 89th Street, and was attempting to cross 37th Avenue when the driver of a blue 2016 BMW X6 SUV traveling eastbound on 37th Avenue at a high rate of speed struck her. The driver then sped away from the scene eastbound on 37th Avenue toward Corona before turning right on 92nd Street toward Roosevelt Avenue, according to an NYPD spokeswoman.
“My thoughts are with her family and loved ones, as they cope with a senseless, entirely preventable loss,” Council Member Shekar Krishnan said. “Ten years after the launch of Vision Zero in New York City, we remain too far away from zero traffic deaths.”
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio launched the initiative at P.S.152 in Woodside just a mile and a half west of 90th Street in January 2014 to combat the epidemic of traffic fatalities in western Queens. On Thursday, Contreras-Baquedano became the ninth pedestrian killed by a motorist citywide so far in 2024, two more than the 7 reported at the same point last year, according to the NYPD. Krishnan said more needs to be done to address street carnage across the city.
The families of 7-year-old Dolma Naadhun, 7-year-old Kamari Hughes, and hundreds of other New Yorkers killed just last year deserve immediate action to make sure our streets are safer,” Krishnan said. “As other cities have shown — as we are proving on the 34th Avenue Open Street here — we can prevent these tragedies. From our streets to our open streets, the Department of Transportation must do more urgently to prevent crashes and save lives.
Meanwhile, the search continues for the driver of the blue BMW X6 SUV who stuck Contreras Baquedano and the investigation by the NYPD’s Highway District Collision Investigation Squad remains ongoing.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website, on Twitter @NYPDTips.
Featured Events
