A truck driver for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection was arrested and charged in a fatal collision in Elmhurst last month.
Roderick Mitchell, 38, of Valley Stream, Long Island, turned himself in at the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst, where he was charged with failure to yield and failure to exercise due care for striking 43-year-old Natalia Garcia-Valencia of Middle Village on the morning of Tuesday, Mar. 12.
Mitchell was behind the wheel of a DEP truck and allegedly making an illegal turn at the intersection of 57th Avenue and 80th Street near Elmhurst Park at around 8:30 a.m. when he struck the resident of 80th Street in Middle Village.
Police from the 110th Precinct responded to a 911 call of a pedestrian struck at the location and found Garcia-Valencia lying on the roadway near the Long Island Expressway. She was unconscious and unresponsive with severe head and body trauma. EMS responded to the scene and rushed the victim to Elmhurst Hospital where she was pronounced dead a short while later, police said.
Further investigation by the NYPD’s Highway District Collision Investigation Squad determined that Mitchell was driving a city-owned 2022 Ford F-750 traveling eastbound and made a right turn from 57th Avenue to travel southbound on 80th Street, a turn that is illegal for truck drivers unless they are making deliveries.
Mitchell remained at the scene following the fatal collision and was not arrested at the time. He surrendered at the 110th Precinct nearly a month later following the NYPD investigation. His arraignment is pending.
Garcia-Valencia was one of three pedestrians who were fatally struck and killed by unsafe drivers in Queens during the same week in March, including 58-year-old Elisa Bellere, who was killed while jogging in Bayside, and 8-year-old Bayron Palomino Arroyo, who was crossing an East Elmhurst intersection with his mother and brother, when he was struck and killed by an impatient driver from Flushing.
Their deaths led to a rally on Mar. 22 at P.S. 110Q in East Elmhurst, where Palomino Arroyo went to school. Elected leaders from across the borough joined safe streets advocates to call on legislators in Albany to pass Sammy’s Law — which would allow New York City to lower speed limits — and other street safety measures. It was followed by an Emergency Children’s March for Safe Streets from East Elmhurst to Corona.
