Kruger Outrages Bereaved Mom In Promoting iPod Bill

State Senator Carl Kruger pushing a bill banning pedestrians from using iPods and other devices when crossing the street, but the mother of a man killed is outraged that the politician is using her son as a poster boy for the initiative.

Kruger first tried to get the bill – which would allow police to fine iPod-wearing pedestrians $100 – in 2007, but it lacked support. He’s trying to get it going again, and this time is touting the case of 21-year-old Jason King, who was fatally struck by a truck backing up last December while listening to his iPod.

His mother, Sonia King, is outraged because Kruger is using her son’s death as an example of why you shouldn’t listen to your iPod while crossing the street, and implying that King was to blame for wearing the iPod. But she said there was more to the story, and is bashing Kruger for failing to contact her before using her son’s name as part of his political campaign.

“[Kruger] used our son’s death to go for headlines and political pandering,” King told Courier-Life. “Shame on politician Kruger for leaving out the truth.”

“My son was crossing the street legally in the crosswalk when a large construction truck illegally backed into the crosswalk and killed him,” she wrote in a letter to Kruger. “The accident happened on a one way street.”

Kruger mentioned King’s death in a press release about his bill, accouring to Courier-Life, claiming that music was “blaring through [Jason King’s] headphones” and that he “failed to hear the backup signal” of the truck that struck and killed him as he left work on Madison Avenue on December 7.

Kruger’s colleagues in Albany do not favor the bill and no one has co-sponsored it.