BY THE VILLAGE SUN | Updated Nov. 18, 2 p.m.: A young worker was killed by a bucket truck a.k.a.cherry picker that his own father was operating in the East Village on Friday morning.
A police spokesperson said the incident occurred at 8:38 a.m. at First Avenue and Seventh Street. Ommatt Cruz, 19, a Staten Island resident, was doing traffic control as the cherry picker was being backed up onto a flatbed truck when he was struck in the intersection. Police and emergency responders found Cruz with severe body trauma, unconscious and unresponsive. He was declared dead at the scene.
The 42-year-old operator who was reversing the cherry picker has not been charged at this point. An investigation by the Police Department’s Collision Investigation Squad is ongoing.
On Saturday, the Daily News and New York Post reported that the cherry picker’s driver was, in fact, the victim’s own father.
Cruz’s death was reported Friday morning three hours after the fatal accident in an e-mail alert by Transportation Alternatives. The TA alert noted that, within the past 24 hours, drivers had also fatally struck pedestrians in Hell’s Kitchen and Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn.
GoFund Me info
https://www.gofundme.com/f/funeral-expenses-for-ommatt-cruz?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=sms&utm_source=customer
Why is the Transportation Alternatives email disclaimer needed? This was reported on ABC-7 news as well
Choresh, it’s not a “disclaimer,” it’s called giving credit. That was the first place we saw something on this tragic incident, then we called the Police Press Dept. to find out more information. So, in our story yesterday, we gave an accreditation to the initial source, which is standard for newspapers, at least ones that believe in giving credit. The TA notice did not state the circumstances of how the victim was killed by the bucket truck, just said a pedestrian was “killed by a boom truck” at that location, without any further info, so we called the police for details. After we called the police, they some hours later subsequently put out a media alert about the incident, but only gave the victim’s name. Today, the story has been taken further by the Daily News and NY Post, which both revealed the tragic fact that the vehicle’s operator was the victim’s father. Choresh, is there a problem with giving proper credit to the initial source? The idea is sort of to give a thumbs-up to whichever outlet or source first unearthed that this happened — which is how other media, like us, get onto the story. If it was on ABC TV News first and we missed it…then we missed it. Not AI here. We are not monitoring every media outlet in the city 24/7.
100%. If anything, the first one to report this tragic incident was EV Grieve.
Choresh,
Best thing would be if we can think about supporting the family – like if there is a GoFundMe?
Not on bikes