Driver sped through red light in fatal Brooklyn hit-and-run | CPT PPP Coverage

Cryptopolytech (CPT) Public Press Pass (PPP)
News of the Day COVERAGE

200000048 – World Newser
•| #World |•| #Online |•| #Media |•| #Outlet |

View more Headlines & Breaking News here, as covered by cryptopolytech.com

A hit-and-run collision that claimed the life of 18-year-old Shanti Joyner in Brooklyn was the result of sheer reckless driving, according to prosecutors with the Brooklyn district attorney’s office who recovered surveillance footage of the suspect speeding through a red light.

East New York resident Kashawn Croswell, 25, was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Supreme Court on charges including second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and leaving the scene of an accident, court documents show.

Investigators discovered surveillance footage from a Downtown Brooklyn Walgreens that shows a 2014 Mercedes Benz S550 driven by Croswell speeding south along Court St. at 3:25 p.m. Friday when he plunged the German luxury car through a red light at Atlantic Ave, according to prosecutors.

Croswell slammed the sedan into the front passenger side of a 2019 Honda Accord driven by Iesha Joyner, 32, and carrying Shanti as the sisters headed west along Atlantic Ave. on their way home from working a late-night shift at a nearby bar, according to police.

Witnesses said the Joyner sisters’ sedan was sent into a tailspin after the Benz driven by Croswell slammed into them.

“The Mercedes-Benz was going very fast,” said Murat Sonkya, who was working at a nearby fruit stand. “I heard the crash.”

Rescuers discovered Shanti bleeding and unconscious in the Honda’s front passenger seat after the crash. Paramedics rushed her to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where she died.

Iesha Joyner, who was also arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, and a 24-year-old woman riding with Croswell were taken to Methodist for treatment, too, according to police.

Surveillance footage shows Croswell and his passenger emerging from the wrecked Mercedes, which burst into flames following the collision, before fleeing the scene. Police stopped both of them a short distance later and arrested Croswell after he was found with the keys to the Mercedes in his pockets, prosecutors say.

Croswell is a graduate of Brooklyn’s High School for Civil Rights, where he played cornerback on the football team, according to ESPN.

His brother said the charges against his sibling have shaken his family, but they’re determined to stand by him.

“My brother is a man who’s trying to do what’s right for his family,” said the sibling, who refused to give his name. “It’s hard.”

The Daily News Flash

Weekdays

Catch up on the day’s top five stories every weekday afternoon.

Croswell was ordered held on $250,000 bail following his arraignment Saturday. His family is working to bail him out, the brother said.

The defendant’s Mercedes-Benz had a Florida license plate with a motorized frame that can bring down a cover to obscure the plate when passing electronic plate readers at toll booths.

The motorized license plate covers, sold on Amazon.com for $75 to $100, are illegal in New York and New Jersey, but growing in popularity.

On July 2, Croswell was charged in Queens with reckless driving after cops clocked him driving 60 mph in a 25 mph zone near the intersection of North Conduit Ave. and Baisley Blvd., just north of Kennedy Airport.

A complaint in Queens Criminal Court also charged him with possession of a forged credit card.

Shanti, a recent graduate of Port Richmond High School, leaves behind a 1-year-old daughter, the sisters’ mother Jeanette Perez said on Saturday.

“Life changes very quickly before we know it,” the devastated mom told the Daily News as she sat by Iesha’s hospital bed.