A 10th cyclist is killed in Brooklyn

Last year, 10 cyclists were killed citywide. Six months into this year, 10 have been killed in Brooklyn alone.

June 28, 2019 Noah Goldberg

People have installed "ghost bikes" around the city in memory of killed cyclists. This one is at Church Avenue and Nostrand Avenue in Flatbush. Eagle file photo by Todd Maisel

Ghost bikes across the city mark the sites where cyclists have been killed. Eagle file photo by Todd Maisel

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A bicyclist was struck and killed Thursday evening in Brownsville — the 10th killed in Brooklyn so far in 2019. The borough’s total, from the first six months of the year alone, is now equal to the total number of cyclist deaths citywide in all of 2018, according to data from Transportation Alternatives and Vision Zero.

In a separate incident, less than an hour later, a pedestrian was hit by a car and killed only a mile away in Crown Heights, police said Friday morning.

The cyclist, Ernest Askew was riding his bike west on Sutter Avenue toward the intersection of Chester Street around 9 p.m. Thursday when he “disobeyed a steady red traffic signal,” according to a spokesperson for the NYPD. A white 2018 Hyundai was heading north on Chester Street with a green light and hit Askew, who smashed into the windshield and suffered severe injuries to his head, cops said.

The driver stayed on the scene and was not arrested. Askew was taken to Brookdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Askew was the 14th bicyclist killed this year, according to Transportation Alternatives. He was the second killed this week, after 20-year-old Robyn Hightman was killed in Manhattan on Monday.

Bicyclist deaths have spiked in 2019 after hitting their lowest total in at least a decade last year. Brooklyn has been hit particularly hard in 2019 with cyclist deaths, sparking heated debates over the creation of more bike lanes in the borough.

Just 40 minutes after Askew was killed, around 9:40 p.m., a 74-year-old man standing in the middle of Ralph Avenue south of Sterling Place was struck and killed by a woman driving a 2003 Nissan SUV. She stayed on the scene and was not arrested, either. The victim’s name has not been released.

Both crashes are being investigated by the NYPD’s Collision Investigation Squad.

Correction (3:00 p.m.): A previous version of this article stated that 13 cyclists have been killed so far this year. According to Transportation Alternatives, that number is 14.