School nurse killed
A beloved school nurse at P.S. 63 on E. Third St. died after the minivan in which she was riding collided with another van at 6:15 a.m. Fri., Oct. 23, at the intersection of First Ave. and E. Fourth St., police said. Jacqueline Franklin, 55, was in the vehicle headed north on First Ave. when it collided with the van eastbound on E. Fourth St. She was taken to Beth Israel Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 7 a.m. Emergency workers had to remove the minivan’s roof to extricate Franklin, of South Ozone Park, Queens.
The driver of the minivan, 52, and the driver of the van, 19, both told police that they did not run a red light at the intersection, according to reports. Neither was charged in connection with the accident.
Indicted in fatal crash
Carmen Huertas, 31, of the Bronx, was indicted for vehicle manslaughter on Fri., Oct. 23, in connection with the Sun., Oct. 11, auto crash on the Henry Hudson Highway in which Leandra Rosada, 11, of the Robert Fulton Houses in Chelsea, was killed.
Also in the station wagon that Huertas was driving at the time of the accident were six other 11-year-old girls, including Huertas’s daughter, who were injured in the crash.
The girls had been at a weekend sleepover at Huertas’s Bronx apartment since Friday, but Huertas took them all, including her 14-month-old son, to a birthday party in Chelsea given by Huertas’s relatives on Saturday, the indictment says.
At 12:30 a.m., Huertas, who had been drinking, loaded the children in her van to drive them back to her Bronx apartment, according to the indictment filed by the Manhattan district attorney. But the father of the infant boy took him out of the car because he feared that Huertas was too drunk to drive.
On the way to the Bronx, Huertas engaged the children in guessing games about whether they would make it home without crashing, according to the indictment. Police estimated that Huertas was driving 68 miles per hour when she crashed. The posted speed limit is 55 miles per hour. At 12:40 a.m. at W. 90th St. Huertas lost control of the vehicle, which swerved, jumped a curb, rolled over and slammed into trees on the northbound lane’s east side.
Rosada and two other girls, all without seatbelts on, were thrown from the station wagon’s rear section onto the highway shoulder, according to the indictment. Huertas and the other girls were able to climb out of the station wagon, which was resting upside down.
Leandra was found in cardiac arrest lying by the side of the highway. The other children sustained spine and skull fractures, concussions and broken arms and legs, according to the charges. Huertas’s blood alcohol level was tested at .11 percent, above the legal threshold of .08 percent.
Charges against Huertas include second-degree manslaughter, first-degree vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and driving under the influence of alcohol.
Indict rape suspect
A Manhattan grand Jury on Oct. 22 indicted Vincent Heyward, 21, for a series of recent rapes, sexual assaults and robberies of women in Hamilton Heights and Soho, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The offenses, including four counts of first-degree rape and several counts of sexual assault, burglary and robbery, occurred on Aug. 1, 10, 18 and 23 and Sept. 7, the indictment says.
The Aug. 23 attack was an attempt on a woman as she entered her Broome St. apartment, but two witnesses turned up and the suspect fled.
Heyward was arrested Sept. 15 when a DNA sample was taken and matched with DNA at a crime scene, the indictment says. At a Sept. 21 court appearance, he punched a court officer and an Emergency Medical Service worker.
Beal makes bail
Dana Beal, the East Village Yippie and advocate for legal marijuana who was arrested Sept. 30 with two friends near Omaha, Neb., with 150 pounds of marijuana in duffel bags in their car, was freed on bail last week, according to Alice Torbush, a friend. The two friends, Christopher Ryan and James Statzer, were expected to make bail by Wed., Oct. 28, Torbush said. The three men were believed to be driving to New York from a San Francisco conference of NORML, a marijuana law reform group, when they were arrested. Beal is scheduled to appear at a hearing in Saunders County, Neb., District Court on Nov. 23.
‘Gimme what you got’
Two robbers approached a teenager sitting on the stoop of 135 W. 13th St. at 4 p.m. Thurs., Oct. 15, and one of them said, “Let’s make this quick, gimme what you got,” police reported. The victim, 17, asked, “Are you serious?” One of the suspects then pulled a box cutter and said, “Make it quick.” The victim handed over his cell phone, and both suspects, described as black males, one age 19, 5 feet 7 inches tall and 140 pounds with a Caesar haircut and the other 18, 5 feet 10 inches, 150 pounds with close-cut hair, fled east toward Sixth Ave.
Albert Amateau
