A driver who turned himself in to police on Thursday for a deadly hit and run in Morris Park earlier this month has yet to face any charges.
The driver’s lawyer told the Bronx Times he expected his client to be charged when he turned himself in at the 49th Precinct, but was instead let go.
“We anticipated Mr. (Emilio) Berrios being charged with negligent homicide but he wasn’t charged with anything, and after speaking with the detectives we were allowed to walk him out of the precinct,” lawyer Nicholas Ramcharitar said.
Bronx resident Emilio Berrios, who identified himself as the driver of the truck that fled the scene, turned himself in to police with Ramcharitar on Thursday, as first reported by the Daily News, in what the lawyer told the Bronx Times he thought would be a surrender.
The NYPD reported that on April 5, a driver went through a red light “at a high rate of speed” in a white pickup truck at the intersection of Williamsbridge Road and Pierce Avenue, fatally crashing into Morris Park resident Hua Pan before continuing to drive away. Pan, 64, was crossing the street with a green light on an e-bike, steps away from his home, according to information from police. Pan, who was left laying in the road with head trauma, was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center, according to the police department.
A collision report put out by the NYPD the day after the incident said that the truck was “operated by an unknown individual.” However, Berrios retained Ramcharitar the morning after the incident after seeing it on the news and the lawyer was in contact with the NYPD the same day, Ramcharitar told the Bronx Times.
Ramcharitar said that in his experience, investigations of fatal accidents take between one to six months. However, he said it is “a very rare occurrence” for him to arrange a surrender for his client without it resulting in an arrest.
The lawyer told the Bronx Times that typically when he offers a surrender, police arrange a time to arrest and process the individual and put them in front of a judge to be arraigned, but this time they “weren’t necessarily that interested in having him turn himself in,” and only wanted him to come to the station if he was willing to speak.
Ramcharitar said that in other instances, he wouldn’t have his clients speak to police. His website even says “Say less. Shut your mouth.” on its home page. But Berrios, a 31-year-old who works in production lighting, was “absolutely mortified,” and eager to turn himself in that morning, the lawyer said.
“He wanted to take the initiative to come forward and say, ‘Hey listen, I’m here, let me tell you what happened,’” he said. “Which is unlike a lot of individuals that I come across where they don’t necessarily want to get arrested. … He didn’t want to wait.”
Ramcharitar speculated that investigators are determining whether Berrios can be charged criminally since the police report described the incident as an “accident.”
According to Ramcharitar, Berrios was driving his friend’s heavily tinted pickup truck because the friend wasn’t feeling well.
The truck had a 5% tint around the entire vehicle — meaning 95% of light is blocked out — even on the front windshield, according to Ramcharitar. New York state law doesn’t allow more than 30% of light to be blocked, meaning 70% or more must pass through the window, according to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. The car was recovered by the NYPD in Yonkers the morning after the incident, Ramcharitar said.
“Tints are not meant to be on a passenger car,” the lawyer said. “They’re meant to be on a limo. They’re especially not meant to be on a front windshield.”
A video of the incident published by the Daily News shows a person pulling a cart as they cross the street, as well as Han on his bike, as the truck darts through. Berrios told the Daily News that he swerved his car to avoid hitting what he described as someone with a baby carriage and did not realize he ran into Pan.
Kevin Daloia, a local bicycle safety advocate who installs white-painted “ghost bikes” to memorialize cyclists who are killed in crashes in the Bronx as part of an international initiative, told the Bronx Times he found the crash and the events that followed to be “outrageous.”
“How do you not know if you hit something?” Daloia said. “It’s infuriating. It’s upsetting. I’m sure there would be more people who would feel the same way.”
Daloia made a makeshift memorial at the intersection on Friday night, lighting a candle and wrapping flowers around a post that he said happened to have a bike lock hanging on it. On Monday, the bike lock remained.
Daloia found it “unbelievable” there were no charges when the driver admitted guilt to police and felt like Berrios was trying “to cover his tracks.”
“Apologizing is great, and feeling guilty is great, but there needs to be a penalty,” he said.
Daloia pointed to a recent incident in Astoria, in which Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced two days after a fatal crash that the 18-year-old driver was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court for leaving the scene of a fatal incident without reporting it. The driver, who hit and killed a 14-year-old riding an e-bike, also had “heavily tinted” windows, according to the Queens DA. He was issued violations for the tinted windows, as well as not having insurance, driving without a license and speeding.
The NYPD said there have been no arrests in the ongoing investigation, and the Bronx District Attorney’s office told the Bronx Times that the investigation is continuing.
According to the Daily News, Pan’s daughter and son-in-law were also coming home when they came across the scene, and their 12-year-old child came out of the house and saw what had happened to the grandfather, who was a chef.
Pan was one of three people killed by a car citywide that night, with two pedestrians also being hit by vehicles in Manhattan and Brooklyn just hours earlier.
Daloia said the setup of the intersection is similar to the site of another Bronx crash that killed a bicyclist that has since had a 4-to-3 lane conversion, but he is currently more focused on the criminal aspect of the situation than advocating for traffic safety improvements.
“Unfortunately, people need to suffer for them to make those adjustments,” he said.
Safe streets advocacy group Transportation Alternatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Reach Aliya Schneider at aschneider@schnepsmedia.com or (718) 260-4597. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
