A beloved high school football coach was fatally struck outside his Bronx home by a BMW driver — at an intersection the victim had spoken out about as dangerous after past crashes.
Dwight Downer died after the BMW driver collided with a pickup truck at Eastchester Road and Givan Ave. and then careened into him and several parked cars just after midnight Saturday.
Downer, a 60-year-old retired correction officer and popular high school football coach known to students as “Coach D,” had just parked his own vehicle when he was killed, his family says.
Downer typically parked in the driveway but wanted his visiting nephew to have that spot.
“He left the space in the driveway so his nephew wouldn’t have to look for parking,” Downer’s sister Karen Green said. “His nephew was coming so he took the spot across the street. So he did his last act of kindness.”
The force of the impact sent the BMW careening toward a row of parked cars — and the victim.
The BMW driver struck an Acura, a Nissan Murano, and the victim before continuing down the street and colliding with a parked Honda Accord and a Toyota Camry before stopping.
The driver of the pickup truck the BMW struck never stopped and was last seen heading north on Givan Ave., cops said.
The 24-year-old BMW driver has not been changed.
Downer was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center but couldn’t be saved. He was a father of two.
He worked as a correction officer at Rikers Island for 27 years before retiring about a decade ago. Since then he had coached football at DeWitt Clinton High School, where he attended and played on the football team in his youth.
Downer also coached the Bronx Buccaneers, a youth football league, for the past six years.
“He was a mentor to so many kids,” Green said. “He had that ability to instill those values and determination and send them on the right road.”
On his days off from coaching, he would sometimes walk to Clinton High School and run drills with anyone who wanted extra practice or just to hang out. Many of his players received scholarships to prestigious high schools and beyond.
Downer loved to cook BBQ for his players and their parents. “He was always like ‘Here, try this dry rub,’” said his brother Patrick Downer, who played with his brother on the Clinton High School football team and was also a corrections officer.
“He loved life,” the victim’s sister said. “Every Super Bowl he would cook. He had a large circle of friends. People loved him.”
The family, who has owned the home on the corner for 50 years, has long been wary of the intersection, which has been the scene of numerous crashes, they said.
“At least four in this garden. Its awful,” Green said.
“We’ve lived in this house since childhood and we’ve seen so many accidents. So many times my aunt had to repair that fence. I remember at first when we were little kids there was a chain link fence. They knocked that down. Then there was another fence, part cinderblock. They knocked that down. And it’s been several times that someone has ran into that fence or there’s a crash at that corner.”
Eventually the city installed a traffic light but crashes kept happening.
In 2017, the family gathered at the house to celebrate their matriarch’s birthday when a car barreled into their garden.
“They were celebrating her 80th birthday and we just heard an explosion,” Green said.
The family ran outside to see a totaled car in their garden. Five people were injured in the crash, which only narrowly missed a man holding a baby who was pushing a stroller down the sidewalk.
“All I saw was the man dashing away with the baby in his hands,” Dwight Downer told ABC at the time, eight years before he would die in a crash at the same spot. “He would’ve been hit if he didn’t move fast.”
“People don’t know how to slow down,” he added. “People are in a hurry to go nowhere.”
