Police arrested a 24-year-old Staten Island woman with a suspended drivers license who on Saturday night opened her parked car’s door, striking a 23-year-old female cyclist on Atlantic Avenue and sending her into the path of an MTA bus that ran her over and killed her in Prospect Heights.
Krystal Francis called 911 after the 8:30 p.m. accident near Washington Avenue but left her car to fetch family members from a nearby baby christening for support at the crime scene where Jasmine Herron died, police said. Francis was charged with aggravated unlicensed operator and was expected to face an additional charge from the Brooklyn DA’s office related to her car door causing the accident, NYPD officials said.
Herron, a Colorado transplant living in Ditmas Park, was not the first to be killed after being “doored” by a parked car this year. In March, Megan Charlop, 57, of the Bronx, was run over when a car door threw her in front of a bus on Crotona Avenue in East Tremont.
“These are not situations the city can’t fix … in terms of taking a big street and figuring out how it works for buses, bikes, pedestrians and drivers,” said Noah Budnick of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, noting the DOT’s revamping of the Manhattan’s bustling First and Second avenues.
