EAST ELMHURST — A drunk driver struck and killed a little boy on Friday night in Queens, police said.
Olvin Jahir Figueroa, 3, was crossing Junction Boulevard west to east with his mother, 23, near Northern Boulevard about 9:50 p.m., police said.
That's when Gilbert Echeverria, 35, headed north on Junction Boulevard in a white 2011 Acura MDX and inadvertantly mowed the little boy down, police said.
The driver then stopped to try and help, police said.
"I'm very hurt. I don't have my child. I want my child," father Olvin Figueroa sobbed at the family's home on Saturday. The child, known as Jahir, was his only son. His family had recently moved from Honduras, hoping for a better life in Queens.
"I just came seven months ago. I feel very bad," he said.
Jahir had an older sister still in Honduras, said Figueroa. The child's mother, Karina Osorio, who is pregnant with Figueroa's third child, was uninjured, he said.
Jahir loved soccer and playing games with his friends, Figueroa said in Spanish through tears.
"He was happy. He got along with everyone," he said.
Echeverria rushed the child and his mother to New York Hospital Queens, where Jahir was pronounced dead on arrival, police said.
The driver was arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and driving while intoxicated, said police, who initially identified the child as Jaied Figueroa.
An investigation was ongoing.
