NYPD: Sorry, We’re Too Busy Dealing with Bombs to Protect You From Killer Drivers

A man and his son were run down and seriously injured this morning in Crown Heights, but the NYPD’s official comment was, “Nothing to see here.”

That’s more or less what a department spokesperson told Gothamist after a two-car collision in Crown Heights sent two pedestrians to the hospital on Thursday morning.

“With everything going on with packages and bombs, we’re not going further into this because no one was likely to die or seriously injured,” the spokesperson said, referring to the ongoing national news story about explosives being delivered to liberal icons such as Joe Biden, former President Obama, the Clintons and CNN.

The pedestrians — a father and son — were crossing Brooklyn Avenue at Crown Street when a southbound driver on Brooklyn Avenue went through a red light, striking a second vehicle, which barreled into the walkers as they made their way through the crosswalk, according to NYPD. The “New York City Alerts” Twitter page shared video of the crash (VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED):

No charges were filed against either driver, which the NYPD spokesperson interviewed by Gothamist attributed to the police department’s razor-sharp focus on the ongoing bomb threat — or, conversely, the fact that no one was killed or injured.

Justification aside, the implicit message to New York City pedestrian is frightening: If you are struck but happen to survive, the NYPD will treat the driver as if he has done nothing wrong.

Streetsblog reached out to NYPD for further clarification on its spokesperson’s befuddling statement.

“I wouldn’t know where to even begin,” said Detective Brown of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information’s Office. “If you’d likely to get more information about the incident, you can email the office.”

Streetsblog emailed but got no response.

Update: After this story was published, the mayor’s office connected Streetsblog with NYPD spokesperson Lt. John Grimpel, who provided the following statement:

The original reporter called, and was told basic information of the collision, time of occurrence, the location, ages of the victim. They were also informed that we would look into the collision, but since it was not a [Collision Investigation Squad] job just to give us a reasonable amount of time since we were dealing with the bomb job in lower Manhattan. He was also informed that it’s not a CIS if there’s not someone seriously injured or dead, so we don’t get notified of the collision unless we looked into it. At no time did we say we were forgoing an investigation because we lacked resources to protect New Yorkers from dangerous driving while also handling a terrorist emergency. That would never be said any time.