THE BRONX — A 32-year-old father of three was struck and killed by a van that lost control and smashed into his residential building, according to police and news reports.
Derrick Callender, a father of three, was oustide 666 East 233rd St. just after midnight when an out-of-control van struck him near White Plains Avenue, causing severe injuries and trauma all over his body, police and reports said.
The van, a 1988 Toyota Sienna, had been speeding eastbound on East 233rd and was going so fast it mounted the sidewalk and crashed into the building, police said. The driver may have been bent on striking a different person, the New York Daily News reported, but instead killed the victim, who was there with two of his children, aged 2 and 9, looking on. He was rushed to Montefiore North Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival.
Police identified the alleged driver as Henry Lawrence, 22, also of the Bronx, and charged him with two counts of second-degree murder, citing intent and depraved indifference.
According to the Daily News, he may have been one in a group of men who had been in an argument earlier with a liquor store owner who refused to sell to him when he couldn't produce identification.
Witnesses told the paper that the driver circled the block in the green Sienna before looping back and driving up on the sidewalk.
The occupants fled the van on foot after the crash, the NYPD said.
