MTA bus driver, father of 5 killed in Brooklyn hit-and-run

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Saturday, March 20, 2021
Bus driver, father of 5 killed in NYC hit-and-run
MTA bus driver Oscar Holford was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in East New York on Friday night.

EAST NEW YORK, Brooklyn (WABC) -- Police are searching for the driver who struck and killed an off-duty MTA bus operator last Friday.

"To lose your life at the hands of somebody as callus, it's damning to us," said Oscar Holford's friend Andre Armstrong.

To everyone at the Fresh Pond Bus Depot, they're not just colleagues -- they're family.

That included Oscar Holford, a bus operator who had been on the job for 14 years -- until Friday night, when a driver hit the 36-year-old and kept going.

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"Oscar would have never left anyone there so if you're watching me, let's go, it's time to turn yourself in," Armstrong said.

It was Friday night around 10:15 p.m. in East New York.

Holford's girlfriend Nyasha Jackson tells Eyewitness News, she dropped him off at a deli on Pitkin Avenue across from his home while she waited in the car.

But then there were sirens and an ambulance. Holford was rushed to the hospital but died on Monday.

"We were building a future together and it just, everything is gone, it's not right, it's not fair," Jackson said.

It's not fair to Holford's five daughters, who he adored so much.

"You took our father away, he has children, it's not ok," Holford's daughter Oniya Holford said.

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Maria Ha, 25, and 31-year-old Dan Lee say they were verbally harassed while on the street in Kips Bay and told to go back to China by an unknown woman.

Police are looking for the driver, who was in a white car heading west on Pitkin.

His death sits heavy on everyone's mind back at the bus depot, where Holford is being remembered as one of the greats.

"Just to put your foot on the pedal would have saved a life," Armstrong said.

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