Vows done to branch risk as collision plant mourned
Apr 03
Thursday, Feb 24th 2011, 4:00 AM
Mourners gathered Wednesday during a arise for 11-year-old Russell Smith, as officials pronounced they were holding stairs to branch accidents on a Grand Concourse like a one that killed a fun-loving boy.
The boy, clad in a white fit and bullion tie, lay in a brownish-red casket, a fragrance of yellow roses during his feet, in a wake home 9 blocks from where his physique was crushed when he darted into a rush of trade on Feb. 16.
His face gimlet scars from a accident.
Teachers, classmates and kin stood over his box and one by one, whispered their goodbyes.
“I’m joyful,” pronounced his mother, Monique Mitchell, 32. “My son overwhelmed so many people and I’m blissful he’s in a Lord’s hands now.”
Russell was killed when he attempted to cranky a Concourse during E. 183rd St. after shopping divert for his baby brother. He was strike by a Honda CRV. No steal was involved.
Local residents contend that widen of a six-lane Concourse is hazardous to cross.
“We can’t have this occur again,” pronounced City Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), who chairs a Council travel committee. “We contingency do something.”
Vacca pronounced he renewed a before ask for speed cameras and additional red light cameras on a city’s many dangerous streets that would sketch offending vehicles.
The city can implement red light cameras though state approval, Vacca said. Speed cameras, that work in tandem with radar guns, would need Albany‘s sanction.
“Red light cameras have softened walking reserve in other tools of a city,” Vacca said. “I wish they could have a likewise surpassing outcome in a Bronx.”
Xavier Rodriguez, district manager of Community Board 5, pronounced he had called on a city Department of Transportation and a Police Department to control a “site reserve inspection” during E. 183rd and a Concourse.
The NYPD pronounced yesterday it is not adding channel guards or cops there, though is looking into such a site inspection. DOT did not lapse calls.
“He was one of a many enterprising kids in a school, full of life,” pronounced Russell Bernstein, 44, one of Smith’s teachers during Public School 9. “In 20 years of teaching, I’ve never felt this way. It’s a terrible clarity of loss.”
“We’re on tip of this issue, and I’ll make certain my son’s life wasn’t taken in vain,” pronounced Mitchell.
The youngster’s wake will be hold during 10 a.m. currently during Ortiz Funeral Home, 2585 Grand Concourse. He will be buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Hackensack, N.J., his mom said.