BY TANANGACHI MFUNI, OREN YANIV and JONATHAN LEMIRE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Courtesy of the New York Daily News
A 5-year-old Queens boy was thrown from an SUV and killed early Thursday after his aunt’s vehicle crossed the path of two drag-racing cars, police and witnesses said.
Jordan McLean’s aunt swerved her Ford Escape away from one car but could not avoid a blue BMW.
The luxury sedan slammed into the SUV, spinning the Ford and ejecting Jordan from the backseat. The little boy ended up pinned between his aunt’s crumpled SUV and a wall on 109th Ave. in Jamaica.
“I just heard a boom and the car started spinning out,” said witness Roosevelt Watson, 34. “We pulled a lady out of the car and she started screaming, ‘Where’s my baby?’ ‘Where’s my baby?’ ”
Jordan’s aunt Claris Edwards was driving north on 164th Place to drop the boy and his mother, Marcia McEachron, at their home just after midnight. Two cars suddenly roared down 109th Ave. – a drag-racing hot spot, residents said.
“Two cars were racing, they were speeding,” said Edwards’ son Christopher Smith, 21. “She tried to pull away from one but the other one hit her.”
The impact tore the SUV apart and propelled the BMW into a parked Hyundai.
The BMW’s driver and passengers fled and were not found in a police sweep.
The second car in the race – described by witnesses as a burgundy Jaguar sedan – drove off and did not return, police said.
The BMW had been purchased and registered in the name of a Queens man who did not actually buy it, a police source said. Investigators believe that man had his identity stolen, the source said.
Edwards and McEachron were hurt in the crash, but the injuries were not considered life-threatening, officials said.
“I’m feeling a lot of pain,” said a weeping Edwards before she was taken off in an ambulance.
Jordan, who was raised on the island of Jamaica before moving to Queens a month ago, died at Jamaica Hospital a short time later. McEachron’s husband, who still lives on the island, collapsed when he heard his son had died, relatives said.
Witnesses told police the BMW was spotted racing in the area minutes before the crash, the police source said. Angry residents said the stretch of 109th Ave. is popular with racers.
Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-Queens) said he would ask Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, who launched other successful operations against drag racing, to crack down on the practice in southeast Queens.
A Department of Transportation spokesman said there had been seven accidents at the intersection since 2003, but it did not meet the federal standards for an additional traffic light or stop sign.
