One of the reasons I have never attended my high-school reunions is an encounter I had with a classmate just after I graduated.
We were in the stands for the Thanksgiving Day football game. He said that he was waiting to enroll in the police academy. That did not surprise me: Several members of his family worked in local and state law enforcement. He wasn't, however, trying to continue a familial tradition. Rather, the allure of becoming a constable was that "it's the only job where you get to drive fast, carry a gun and beat people up."
I suspect that more than a few prospective cops were enticed by the prospect of operating vehicles at speeds that would get civilians arrested or ticketed--and, too often, lead to innocent drivers, bystanders, pedestrians--and cyclists--getting killed.
We don't hear about that very often. But such was the tragic fate of Amanda Servedio. The other night, she was riding her bicycle near 37th Street and 34th Avenue in Astoria--an intersection I have pedaled, probably, hundreds of times, as it's only a few blocks from where I lived--when a driver sped a pickup truck through the intersection and struck her. The impact launched her; she landed on a nearby parked car.
She was taken to Elmhurst Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
As terrible as the crash was, it might have been just another of many caused by a careless, errant or impaired driver save for another "twist:" Police were pursuing the vehicle, whose drivers and passengers were suspects in a burglary at a nearby construction site.
Heartbroken to hear the news that our neighbor Amanda Servedio was hit & killed by a driver fleeing the NYPD in a chase on Tuesday.
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) October 24, 2024
Her tragic death was preventable and the latest example of cyclists and pedestrians being killed due to an unacceptable increase in NYPD chases.
An NYPD policy forbids chases of the sort those officers made. There's a very good reason for that, according to Transportation Alternatives' Alexa Sledge: "When there are cars speeding down city streets, it's dangerous." Evidence of her claim can be found in this fact: Ms. Servedio--an "avid cyclist" according to a friend--is the fifth person to be killed in a police chase this year.
Oh, and the suspects, who abandoned the Dodge Ram 1500 (with "ghost" plates), are still at large.
Call me cycnical, but I wonder whether those cops gave chase for the thrill of it--just as my old classmate dreamed of doing.
