A 5-year-old boy was killed while crossing a Queens street Thursday evening by a driver who immediately took off from the scene -- as the horror played out in front of the child's family, police said.
The young boy was crossing 100th Street in East Elmhurst with his family before 5:30 p.m., according to police, when a vehicle turned onto the road from McIntosh Street. The vehicle, a white Dodge Ram pickup truck, hit the child and immediately drove away, police said — with the parents right there to see it all play out in front of them.
The boy, Jonathan Martinez, was taken to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The boy's family grieved the loss the day after the tragedy.
"I just wanted the driver to stop and not run my boy over. Just stop," father Richard Martinez said in Spanish. He said he tried to grab all the kids and pull them back.
"The driver kept on going and crushed my boy with both tires, and he started to bleed profusely," the father described, as he desperately tried to stop the driver, screaming at him.
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Little Jonathan was walking with his father, older brother, little sister and a friend at the time, as they were coming out of Helen Marshall Playground.
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The deadly incident was captured on a neighbor's security camera, showing the driver wasn't speeding and the driver was not making an illegal turn. The video shows three figures — the dad walking hand-in-hand with his two young boys — crossing the street in the middle of the block.
The truck then made the turn, appearing to hit and drag the 5-year-old boy for several feet. The video shows the father trying to flag the driver down, but police say the driver did not stop.
Records shared by transit officials suggest the boy was killed two blocks from his Queens home.
Police are searching for the driver of the vehicle, and no arrests have yet been made. An investigation is ongoing.
