72-Year-Old Pedestrian Killed in Gravesend; Driver Arrested

GRAVESEND — A pedestrian passed away after being struck by a car mid-January in Gravesend.

On Tuesday, January 14, around 10.30 a.m., police responded to a 911 call of a motor vehicle collision involving a pedestrian struck at West 6th Street and Avenue S in Gravesend.

Carlos Negroni, a 41-year-old man operating a white 2012 Ford F-250 pick-up truck, was traveling northbound on Avenue S when he made a left turn onto West 6th Street and struck the pedestrian crossing within the crosswalk on West 6th Street. Cops could not confirm if the pedestrian crossed following the proper traffic light. The driver remained at the scene.

Upon arrival, officers found 72-year-old Maria Leon, just steps away from her home, unconscious and unresponsive, with head trauma. Medical responders transported Leon to Maimonides Hospital, where she was pronounced dead the next day.

Negroni has been arrested and charged on January 25, with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to use due care, cops said.

This is the sixth pedestrian-related death this year in Brooklyn. On January 3, 70-year-old Maria Lorente was struck and killed steps away from her residence in Canarsie, January 8, 68-year-old Judith Wieder died when she was hit by a cement truck in Borough Park, January 15, a 67-year-old woman passed after being struck in Clinton Hill, and two were killed on January 16 by another sanitation truck and by an MTA bus.

Recently, Brooklyn reps gathered to demand justice for the recent traffic victims and call out local authorities to step up safety measures.

“We have seen over 200 pedestrians and bicyclists killed in the last year, the numbers keep rising, this is a crisis,” Councilmember Mark Treyger, representing District 47 which includes parts of southern Brooklyn, said at the meeting. “We need to step up enforcement, accountability, we need traffic calming measures.”

Update: We’ve reached out to DCPI for more information on why this incident was not released earlier, but did not receive an answer. However, DCPI confirmed the driver was not intoxicated.