PELHAM BAY — A 7-year-old boy was killed and his father and sister injured after a driver backed his car into a Bronx restaurant, smashing through the front window and striking the family before taking off, according to the NYPD.
Ethan Villavicencio, 7, was sitting with his father and 5-year-old sister inside Kennedy's Chicken and Sandwiches at 3275 Westchester Ave. at 5:30 p.m. Thursday when 73-year-old Kwasi Oduro tried to back into a parking space, hit a parked car and smashed his Mercedes Benz SUV through the eatery window, police said.
Oduro fled the scene and was arrested two blocks away, at the corner of Westchester and Continental avenues, police said. He was charged with two counts of leaving the scene of an accident and was expected to be arraigned Friday afternoon.
Ethan was taken to Jacobi Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to police. His father and sister were taken to the hospital in stable condition.
"He was my only boy," Ethan's distraught mother, Natasha Villavicencio, said between sobs as she stood in the doorway of her Bronx home Friday. "He was fighting for his life."
Ethan's uncle, Eddie Llamas, 46, said the boy had been looking forward to a picnic he was planning to go to on Saturday.
"He had so much to live for," he said. "He was a great kid. He didn't even want you to kill a fly. He would get upset if you killed a fly."
Llamas described the family as "heartbroken."
"He lost a child," he said of Ethan's dad. "The father was yelling, 'I wish it would've been me!'"
Another uncle, 13-year-old Isaac Troches, remembered Ethan as fun-loving.
"He liked to play outside a lot. When he couldn't go outside, he played his PlayStation. He liked to play basketball games," he said.
"He was really fun. He didn't like to stay bored."
Ethan's godmother Sol Maria Rodriguez said the family was stopping to get ice cream at the restaurant when the crash took place.
"I don't know how it could have happened," she said, saying Ethan's mother had seen the boy before he died and told him, "It's going to be okay."
"He said, 'Okay, mommy, I'll see you after,'" she said.
