WILLIAMSBURG, Brooklyn – A driver apparently trying to make a getaway barreled down a sidewalk in Brooklyn Thursday afternoon, striking a child.
The wild scene played out at the southwest corner of Rodney Street and Lee Avenue in Williamsburg just after 4 p.m., and it was caught on video.
The 9-year-old boy was walking on the sidewalk when he was struck by the black Toyota Camry, and he suffered a minor injury to his right foot.
He was removed to Beth Israel Hospital, while the vehicle fled the location.
David Stares saw the whole thing, and he — along with many area residents — is furious.
DashCam video captured the scene as the car hurtled down the sidewalk, narrowly missing women, children and baby strollers.
When the driver was cornered, Stares charged across the street, pleading with him to stop. Storefront surveillance video shows what happened next, as the car jumped the curb again and and careened backwards down the sidewalk.
Stares raced ahead, trying to clear the sidewalk so no one got killed, as other shopkeepers tried everything to stop the car, even pelting it with trash cans.
Although the driver and his accomplice manage to escape, they were cornered again, this time, by police.
Authorities say it all began when the two men in the car went into a bakery trying to pass an obviously counterfeit $20 bill. The cashier ran his fingers across it and said he knew immediately that it was phony. So the men left and went to the pharmacy across the street, then to the corner grocery, and were turned away over and over again.
Pharmacy clerk Edilberto Flores said that when the men came back a second time, the staff called police. Witnesses say the men took off down the sidewalk after rush-hour traffic blocked their getaway.
“It’s just a miracle that only one person got hurt,” said Josef Langsam, a friend of the victim.
Police say one person is in custody, but they are still searching for the second.
