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Car Driven by Secret Service Agent Kills Woman in Bed-Stuy

By  Ben Fractenberg and Tom Liddy | May 3, 2012 5:55pm | Updated on May 4, 2012 12:45am

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — A car driven by a Secret Service agent killed a grandmother who was on her way to pick up her granddaughter from daycare just blocks from her home Thursday afternoon, according to sources and reports.

Maria Tripp, 47, was struck by a black Chevy Impala on Atlantic and Ralph avenues just before 5 p.m., according to police.

Cops said that Tripp was crossing south over Atlantic Avenue when she was hit by the west-bound car.

"They were just crossing the street and the mother got hit,” a witness who did not want to be named told the Daily News. “She went up like 50 feet in the air.”

Tripp had been walking with her 12-year-old daughter and 19-year-old nephew to pick up her  granddaughter from daycare when she was struck by the car, the paper said.

Mourners embrace at the scene of an accident on Ralph and Atlantic avenues where Maria Tripp, 47, was killed on May 3, 2012.
Mourners embrace at the scene of an accident on Ralph and Atlantic avenues where Maria Tripp, 47, was killed on May 3, 2012.
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Luis Ramirez

The nephew pulled the girl out of the path of the car when they spotted it trying to make the light, the News said.

Tripp was taken to Interfaith Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

According to the sources the driver was a Secret Service agent. Police said he stayed at the scene.  It was not immediately clear if he was on duty.

A Secret Service dispatcher who answered the phone at the New York field office said that the agency did not have any immediate comment.

A call to the national Secret Service press line was not immediately returned.