Two Brooklyn Car Accidents Leave Two Dead

Sun Won Cho, a 40-year-old mother of two, was killed in a church parking lot in Gravesend yesterday afternoon when an elderly man accidentally accelerated his black Mercedes SUV in reverse. Four other people, including two children, were injured after the SUV suddenly car accelerated toward the group as they gathered near a playground. The driver, 72-year-old Kyongkoo Park, remained at the scene and was not charged. Witnesses described the tragic scene.

"I just saw people crying and screaming," local resident Brian Fan tells the Daily News. ""Parents were telling the children, 'Go inside!'" Surveillance cameras captured the accident outside the predominantly Korean church, where Park had just dropped off a passenger around 2:45 p.m. Police say the SUV pulled forward about 10 feet before suddenly shifting into reverse, "accelerating in a reverse semicircle and plowing into the crowd." Apparently, Park knew one of the women he hit. The injured victims were treated last night for minor injuries.

A few miles away in Dyker Heights, a 37-year-old woman named Natalie Assee was killed in a hit-and-run while crossing Fort Hamilton Parkway near 75th Street around 2 a.m. Sunday. Witnesses tell police she was hit by a white four-door sedan, which then sped off toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Investigators found pieces of the car on the ground, the Times reports. But locals aren't surprised, and say this stretch of Fort Hamilton Parkway is a problem area. "They're getting off the Gowanus, the Verrazano, they're speeding to make the lights," local Ralph Carillo tells WCBS. "Maybe reset the lights to slow down speed a little bit."

Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1(800) 577-TIPS. You can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or by texting tips to 274637 (crimes) then enter TIP577.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on March 8, 2010 9:07 AM

Comments [rss]

ocm123

72 is not that old

Clarice City

As an elderly person, you make a choice when you decide to drive. It's just as bad as drinking and driving. If you know that your abilities are impaired, at all, don't climb behind the wheel of a big huge SUV.

Just because the man is old doesn't make him any less of a wreckles, selfish,criminal. Thow the book at him.

Eric

I 100% agree, and I am in favor of mandatory driving tests once a person hits 65. I understand that the elderly don't like to have the few freedoms they have left taken away, but really, I have seen / know of so many accidents with elderly people that I can't understand why this hasn't been enacted. A NINTEY-FIVE year old person took the front bumper off my car once while making a right turn from the middle lane. NINTEY FUCKING FIVE years old and driving!

boogpowell

Why not just have extra tests for everyone. There should be harder written tests as well as harder driving tests and there should be retests every 5 years. its not just the elderly that suck at driving its 95% of people on the road. I think they need to increase the cost of obtaining a licence considerably(would also help nyc/nys budget) and have retests for everybody. This way theres not so mayb people driving 30 in the left lane on the parkway or merginng on to the parkway at 20mph causing every to break and tailend them. Its crazy how easy it is to obtain a licence. this should be a privilege not a right.

Clarice City

My husband was helping me move (before we were married) and on one of his trips to my new apartment he encounted a grizzly scene where an elderly driver had driven up over a curb, onto the sidewalk, and hit the pedestrian, a young college graduate, so hard that it threw her over a stone wall and decapitated her.

He had been driving behind a UPS truck on the quiet residential street when it happend. He saw the body of the girl on the lawn and the UPS driver had stepped out of the truck and was throwing up. Whatever he saw was so bad he couldn't sleep without nightmares for weeks- and he was only a witness.

Later on the driver 85 year old (!!!!), with a terrible driving record in Florida, Lenore Liner, who lived in a very expensive neighborhood down the street from where she killed the girl, was sentenced to house arrest for two years. She actually had the gall to ask for Saturdays and holidays off so that she could go to synagogue. Basically, she really didn't give a shit about the girl that she killed. Also, she was propped up on about three pillows while she drove her white mercedes into the girl.

Funny how she was so connected to her social activities at the synagogue, but no one bothered to take her keys away and offer her a ride.

http://www.dailynewstribune.com/news/x1343817676

And of course the girl she killed was absoutley amazing:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/9/11/badaracco-daughter-killed-in-crash-anna/

moorecor

I dont need to say it, do I?

CR

Yes, say it: "No one ever has any idea what I'm talking about."

legendary

Good to know this guy is still on the road.

Trilby16

I read that the elderly man was backing up and accidentally accelerated. Anyway, I try to stay away from cars backing up for just that reason. Also, I HATE to see people doing illegal 3-point U-turns in areas with busy sidewalks. So dangerous and so unnecessary. Just drive around the block!