New York City Driver Plows into Sidewalk, Killing One and Injuring Four

A 26-year-old man was charged with manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, assault, and driving while intoxicated after plowing into five people, killing one of them, at a New York City intersection on Sunday.

Mahbub Ali drove his Hyundai Sonata onto the sidewalk at East 21st Street and Third Avenue in Gramercy, NBC New York reported. The incident occurred at approximately 7:30 p.m.

Ali first struck a 23-year-old man who was crossing the sidewalk, according to police.  Ali then veered right and hit an 18-year-old man on an e-bike. The vehicle then drove up onto the sidewalk, hitting a 21-year-old man and 26-year-old woman. Ali then crashed into the back of a parked Chevy.

The 23-year-old was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.

“The crash took place near the NYPD’s former police academy building, which has been designated as a migrant shelter,” the New York Post reported.

Ali, who lives in Queens, was photographed on the scene in handcuffs with his head bowed down. He suffered no injuries.

Photos from the scene show first responders attending to a woman in a neck brace lying on the ground.

The driver was allegedly intoxicated at the time of the crash.

The deadly crash comes two months after the New York Post reported that half of all drunk-driving cases in Manhattan were dismissed in 2022.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said this is due to the evidence discovery reform law passed in 2020. The law requires law enforcement to turn in all evidence to defendants within 15 days of arraignment for “traffic offenses and other petty offenses, and within 20 to 35 days for many other crimes,” Rich Calder and Matthew Sedacca from the New York Post reported. Prior to this law, prosecutors were only required to share evidence with the defense if it was requested, and there were no set deadlines.

Of the 262 drunk driving cases handled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office in 2022, 128 – or 49%—were dismissed on technicalities or for other reasons.

In 2019, the office, then led by Cyrus Vance Jr., handled more than double the amount of DWI and other drunk-driving cases, yet only 55 — or 9% — of the 589 were tossed out.

“This data makes clear that discovery is burying our prosecutors in paperwork that is often unrelated to the underlying substance of the case,” Bragg told the Post.