Two People Killed When Stolen Car Speeds off Manhattan Bridge

A female maniac driving a stolen Chevy Malibu rental car blasted off the Manhattan Bridge on Saturday morning, July 19, crashing across a plaza, where she struck and immediately killed two people and smashed into a parked NYPD Auxiliary van before coming to rest against a Bowery jewelry store.

The alleged driver has been identified as Autumn Donna Ascencio Romero, 23, of Brooklyn. Her passenger was 22-year-old Kennedy LaCraft.

The Victims . . .

The carnage happened on a bright Saturday morning at approximately 7:30am, when the only adverse condition was that of the young woman behind the wheel, who was speeding so fast and so recklessly that she missed both possible exits off the bridge and destroyed two innocent people—and two families—instead.

The female victim has been identified as May Kwok, 63, of Bushwick, Brooklyn. Kwok was seated on a metal bench on the east side of Bowery when the car allegedly driven by Romero took her life, and completely uprooted the bench the victim sat upon while also severing a small young tree.

Visiting the scene early that afternoon, this reporter saw the remnants of the bench—its steel mounting rods—and the sidewalk’s broken concrete. The thin broken trunk and scattered green leaves of the destroyed tree provided an eerie counterpoint to the tragic scene.

According to a NY Post reporter who spoke with Kwok’s brother Peter, May Kwok often came from Bushwick to Manhattan’s Chinatown.

“This is not a car accident,” her sibling, 72, raged, according to the Post. “They committed a crime, and they tried to get away from the police because they’re reckless.”

The other victim has been identified as Kevin Scott Cruickshank, 55, an avid recreational bicycle rider, whose LinkedIn describes him as National Sales Strategy Support Manager, Condo/Builder Home Lending at JPMorgan Chase.

A resident of Morningside Heights, Cruickshank, it’s believed, was riding his bike to Coney Island.

”Kevin had been a huge supporter of Transportation Alternatives for years,” said a family spokesperson. “He was registered for the TA Century Ride in September—his favorite bike ride—and that’s why he was going out for a long four-hour bike ride to Coney Island yesterday morning.”

By early Sunday afternoon, a small memorial had been erected in the plaza’s now empty tree bed: a white floral cross with a red heart inset.

. . . and the Perps

A photograph in the NY Post of Romero, the driver of the stolen rental car, taken at the scene shows a thin, limp, somewhat bloodied young woman wearing floral-design jeans and a bare-midriff T-shirt being carried by cops into the Fifth Precinct station house on nearby Elizabeth Street.

Another photo, of Romero’s passenger, LaCraft, shows a relatively cognizant and glum-looking handcuffed young woman wearing blood-spattered silver-colored tights and a silver running-bra-type top being walked into the same station.

It was reported that police found both drugs and alcohol in the car though no further details about Romero’s physical state have been released. At press time, Romero remained hospitalized and has yet to be arraigned.

On Monday, July 21, LaCraft was arraigned in New York Criminal Court on charges including criminal possession of a weapon; criminal possession of stolen property; and unauthorized use of a vehicle.

Cops recovered two semi-automatic 9 mm pistols and 9 mm ammunition from a box in the trunk of the Malibu, an Enterprise rental car that was due back June 29.

At DA Bragg’s request, LaCraft is being held on $150,000 cash bail, $300,000 insurance company bond, or $300,000 partially secured surety bond.

At this time, both the Chevy that cops said Romero was driving and the NYPD Auxiliary van she hit were parked outside the Fifth Precinct station house on Elizabeth Street.

On The Road to Chinatown

It’s presently unknown how Romero got onto the Manhattan Bridge. This question is more germane than it might first seem. While speeding across the Manhattan Bridge isn’t unknown, vehicles rarely enter the span speeding because there’s only local streets and no direct, high-speed highway access to the span.

While Exit 29A on the eastbound BQE does connect to the bridge, the exit ramp is tight and narrow ramp of more than 180 degrees upon which a recklessly speeding vehicle would most likely crash before it reached the Bridge.

On the ground, the Bridge is accessed directly via the Flatbush Avenue Extension, its closest major intersection Tillary Street. Long stop lights and either a sharp left and right turn at Tillary mitigate against speeding and require at least some attentiveness.

If, however, a driver enters the bridge straight on from the Flatbush Avenue Extension itself—and especially if they have the light and don’t stop at Tillary—then they have about 2,000 meters of open road before them.

At the early, relatively light-traffic hour of 7:20 on Saturday morning, this was the road to disaster. Instead of driving straight onto Canal Street or bearing right to head up Bowery, Autumn Donna Ascencio Romero allegedly took a route between the two, leaving a path of immeasurable sorrow behind her, including that of her own family, which reportedly includes a young daughter.

Another Allegedly Stolen Car, Another Bowery Accident

Freakishly, less than 24 hours after the Romero and LaCraft’s alleged death trip, there was another car accident in almost the same exact location.

In this case, the vehicle was a white Infiniti Q50 with New Jersey license plates, and it reportedly crashed at the northeast corner of Bowery and Canal Street around 3am on July 20.

A nearby food-cart worker was slightly injured and Eiquann Foster, 25-year-old-male, of Maplewood, New Jersey, was taken into custody.

Foster has since been charged with Criminal Possession of Controlled Substance 7th Degree and DWI.

While this reporter was present photographing the crashed vehicle Sunday afternoon, three young Hispanic men from Brooklyn ranging in age from teens to twenties walked up and said, approximately, “Holy sh*t! There’s the car!”

“Are you serious?” I asked, thinking they were goofing on the fact I was taking pictures of the bashed-up, airbags-blown vehicle that was seemingly abandoned there.

They were completely serious, they said, and had been tracking the car via GPS to Canal Street and Bowery.

After some further conversation, the men departed for the Fifth Precinct to claim the vehicle.

At press time, it’s unknown if further charges will result from this incident.