An unmarked NYPD car ran a red light at Hoyt Street and Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill on Monday evening, striking a woman riding an electric Citi Bike through the crosswalk and knocking her into the roadway. The crash happened at around 5 p.m., and the officers inside kept driving down Atlantic Avenue before three of them returned to the scene, according to witnesses.
Cyclist Clipped Mid-Crosswalk as Officers Drove On
According to security footage cited by nyc.streetsblog.org, the unmarked white sedan drove through the red light at Hoyt Street while four cyclists and six pedestrians were crossing Atlantic Avenue in various stages. The woman was riding an electric Citi Bike when the car clipped her, and she was able to stand afterward, though the outlet reported that the full extent of her injuries was unclear. Nearby pedestrians rushed to help her, and a witness told the New York Post they heard skidding before seeing the cyclist fly off her bike.
Per that same witness account, the car did not stop immediately — it continued down Atlantic Avenue until civilians and other bikers surrounded the injured cyclist. Three officers from the NYPD's 73rd Precinct eventually returned to the scene, witnesses said, though the Post report notes that the officers' precinct assignment came from a witness claim rather than an NYPD statement. Streetsblog identified two of the officers as Blanca Guevara Rivera and Kelvin Ventura, each with about a year on the job.
Cyclist Says She Called 911 Herself
The cyclist told the Post she does not recall hearing sirens or seeing lights from the car before it hit her. She said she was the one who called 911 and asked for an ambulance — and that officers told her not to call for help and encouraged her not to speak with witnesses, according to her account to the paper. She was taken to the hospital and, per the Post, is recovering from injuries and multiple bruises, while the earlier Streetsblog report said the extent of her injuries remained unclear at the scene.
NYPD detectives arrived within hours and asked a local business for crash footage, the station's report noted. An NYPD spokesperson said in a statement that the incident is under review.
A Corridor With a History of Close Calls
Kelly Carroll, executive director of the Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District, called traffic accidents on the avenue a layer cake of failure and pushed for more enforcement, speed cameras, and red-light cameras, according to the Post. Atlantic Avenue runs from the Brooklyn waterfront on the East River all the way to Jamaica, Queens, and was designated a Vision Zero priority corridor under Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration, a designation intended to reduce traffic fatalities. A 2015 NYC Department of Transportation document had already flagged the avenue as being among Brooklyn's top 10 percent of corridors for total crashes.
Despite piecemeal improvements over the years, the avenue remains a dangerous stretch, the Post reported. Separately, Gothamist reported that 56-year-old Jose Ramos was killed while biking near Atlantic Avenue and Essex Street in Cypress Hills after a light-colored vehicle struck him in a marked crosswalk and fled west without stopping, part of a year in which Transportation Alternatives said New York City reached 200 vehicle fatalities by October 2 — the earliest point in the de Blasio era — with Gothamist citing a 15 percent citywide increase in deaths over the same period a year earlier.
Not the First Police-Vehicle Crash Involving a Cyclist This Year
This is not the first time this year that an NYPD vehicle has been reported striking a cyclist in Brooklyn. In June, Officer Michael McGinn hit cyclist Andi Khoo-Miller while turning right from Schermerhorn Street onto Hoyt Street in Downtown Brooklyn, according to Streetsblog's earlier reporting. Khoo-Miller had the right of way and was riding inside a protected bike lane when McGinn's squad car struck him; video and a police report indicated McGinn never came to a full stop or signaled before turning, and that his sirens and lights were off.
That stretch of Schermerhorn Street between Smith Street and Flatbush Avenue recorded 396 reported crashes between 2015 and 2022 that injured 28 cyclists and 34 pedestrians, prompting a 2022 redesign that made the roadway one-way with a two-way protected bike lane. Council Member Lincoln Restler later found an average of 457 illegally parked cars per day on key routes in the area, with nearly 60 percent displaying placards or NYPD memorabilia. In July, a police driver was also accused of striking a cyclist late on a Saturday night in Chinatown and leaving the scene, according to former officer Sal Greco; the NYPD said its review of additional video found no indication of contact between the department vehicle and the bicycle or rider, while adding that the investigation remained ongoing.
