Late Saturday night, police announced the arrest of a Chevrolet Suburban driver who is accused of horrifically mowing down and killing a 16-year-old girl in Queens after he had argued with her around 4 a.m. earlier that morning.
Edwin Cruz Gomez, 38, of Uniondale, Long Island, was taken into custody at the scene in Jackson Heights after driving off and crashing his car a couple of blocks away from the fatal incident.
Gomez was later formally arrested at 5 p.m. at Queens’ 110th Precinct and hit with a slew of charges — a total of 28 in all — including murder, vehicular manslaughter, driving while intoxicated, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, four counts of criminal possession of a weapon and driving without a valid license.
Police say a rampaging Gomez vaulted his SUV onto a Queens sidewalk at Roosevelt Ave. and Benham St. and slammed into Jhoanny Gomez- Alvarez, 16, from Washington Heights, in Manhattan, as well as a 32-year-old woman believed to be her mother.
Jhoanny was declared dead at the scene by EMS. The older woman was transported by EMS to an area hospital in stable condition.
Witnesses were left shaken up and chilled by the shocking caught-on-video incident.
“He was driving, then he makes a turn and he hits the girl,” a horrified cashier at a nearby deli who witnessed the crash told the Daily News. “He did it on purpose.”
“She was walking,” she said. “He hit her in the back. I was working. I came outside and I saw somebody cry, and somebody scream.”
“He hit the girl, then tried to run away. He backed away and he went (down) the wrong-way street.”
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