A New York City man is facing DWI and manslaughter charges after crashing into multiple parked cars and fatally striking pedestrians on the Upper West Side, police said on Saturday.
The NYPD said Elvin Suarez, 61, was driving northbound Friday evening on Amsterdam Ave. when his 2019 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300 SUV veered over a concrete island and struck four pedestrians near West 109th St.
Suarez then crashed into a parked Chevrolet van, causing what police called “a chain reaction collision” involving four more cars: a 2005 Honda CR-V, 2001 Toyota Sienna, 2005 Toyota 4Runner, and 2014 Nissan Altima. He had already collided with a parked 2013 Volkswagen Jetta SUV approximately 40 feet before the 109th St. intersection, but did not stop, police said.
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A man inside the Chevrolet van, the pedestrians, and Suarez were taken to Mount Sinai Morningside hospital, police said. Two of the pedestrians — 46-year-old Jason Negron, of Manhattan, and 35-year-old Michael Saint-Hilaire, of Manhattan — were pronounced dead, and the other four were in stable condition, police said.
Eva Santiago, a witness to the crash, told CBS News New York she saw the driver “was just swerving, driving really fast, and then he drove up over the median. We [saw] the car go up in the air and come down and land on everybody.”
Another witness said the driver seemed confused and disoriented when he got out of his car.
Police arrested Suarez, charging him with two counts of manslaughter, three counts of vehicular manslaughter, two counts of vehicular assault and DWI.
The NYPD Highway District Collision Investigation Squad’s investigation was ongoing, officials said.
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