If you live on Clinton Street near President Street, you may have heard a huge crash at about 9:30 pm last night. It was the result of an accident involving four cars. The driver who may have caused the crash seems to have fled the scene.
PMFA reader Chance Bliss lives nearby and immediately came out of his building to offer assistance.
He sent us this account of the accident:
Hey Katia,
Just so you know, there was a four car collision / hit and run just under thirty minutes ago, at the intersection of Clinton Street and President Street.
We heard the loud collision outside our window, over a block away, and then I ran over to the intersection to see what had happened.
When I arrived, there were already a dozen or so bystanders.
Several of them called 911 as I was there, while a friend of ours hailed down a police car at the intersection of Clinton Street and Union, who promptly ignored him and drove off down Clinton Street, away from the accident.
This happened again about five minutes later - another patrol car came down Union street, presumably from the 76th precinct, and several people ran towards the car, waving at it, but the driver ignored them, even though i could see that he look down the street in our direction, and proceeded to drive off down clinton street, towards Atlantic.
One of the cars that was hit was a green cab - the driver said that he was moving down Clinton Street towards Atlantic when his taxi was hit by a white car in the middle of the intersection. According to the eyewitness I spoke with, this white car then proceeded to hit another parked car before driving off down President Street towards Henry. One person who was parking his citibike on President, near Henry, saw the car speeding towards him, then gave chase.
When I left the scene a few minutes ago, he was giving his account to the police officer who had arrived.
The driver of the taxi cab was dazed and seemed to be in a bit of shocked, but had no visible injuries.
In any event, it's outrageous that the police completely disregarded several attempts to reach them, and that it took emergency services over 25 minutes to arrive.