Queens head-on crash: Teen truck driver criminally charged with reckless endangerment, speeding, others
A truck driver who veered into oncoming traffic and fatally struck a Queens e-bike rider has been criminally charged after an eight-month investigation, police said Wednesday.
Josh Fitzpatrick, 19, was charged Tuesday with reckless endangerment, speeding and failure to obey a traffic device for the Oct. 21 collision.
Police say 32-year-old victim Tomas Panto Chitic was heading north on an e-bike on Honeywell St. in Long Island City when Fitzpatrick, heading the opposite way, lost control, crossed the double yellow line and slammed into him near Northern Boulevard.
The e-bike came to rest under the Chevy pick-up truck’s passenger-side front wheel. The impact tore the truck’s front bumper almost completely off.
Panto Chitic, who lived in Corona, was rushed by medics to Elmhurst Hospital but could not be saved.
The victim was a Guatemalan immigrant who came to New York four years ago and worked at a car wash so he could send money back home to support his wife and kids, a boy, 11, and a girl, 7.
Fitzpatrick, who lives in Huntington, Long Island, has no prior arrest record.
He was given a desk appearance ticket and is due in court July 3 to face the charges.
