Two men died Wednesday evening in separate car crashes in Queens within hours of each other amid continuing chaos on the city’s streets.
Just before 5 p.m. on Oct. 19, police responded to a 911 call coming from the intersection of Linden Place and 28th Avenue in College Point, and found 58-year-old College Point resident Jose Tejada lying in the roadway with severe bodily trauma. He was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens Hospital in Flushing where he was pronounced deceased.
Investigators say that Tejada had pulled over his Dodge minivan on Linden Place after it started making a strange noise, after which he got out of his car and began inspecting it from the rear. Simultaneously, police say, the driver of a GMC SUV was driving northbound when they merged into the right lane to pass a truck, at which point they struck Tejada and collided into the rear of the minivan.
The SUV driver, 20-year-old Arturo Jimenez of College Point, was arrested for aggravated driving without a license after remaining on the scene.
Eleven people have been injured in nine separate crashes near the intersection since 2012, according to NYC Crash Mapper. The area sits one block away from Interstate 678 and amid a sea of large parking lots serving the College Point Multiplex Cinema, the NYPD Police Academy, the state DMV, an MTA bus depot, and the New York Times’ distribution center, among others.
Six hours later, police were dispatched following a 911 call from the Grand Central Parkway near 73rd Street in Astoria Heights. A 44-year-old man, whose identity has not been publicized, was found unconscious, unresponsive, and with bodily trauma in the parkway’s eastbound lane. The man was taken to Elmhurst Hospital where he was pronounced deceased.
The NYPD claims that the man was attempting to cross the highway on foot, rather than using the nearby pedestrian overpass, and was struck by the driver of a BMW SUV. The driver remained on the scene, and cops have not made any arrests in the case.
