New Brunswick fire director gets summonses for hitting kids with SUV
NEW BRUNSWICK (WABC) -- A New Jersey fire director has been issued summonses for hitting three children on their way home from school with his SUV Tuesday.
New Brunswick city spokesperson Jennifer Bradshaw says Robert Rawls was issued traffic summonses by the New Brunswick Police Department for careless driving and failure to stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk.
The incident happened around 3:30 p.m., as the kids were walking on Livingston Avenue.
Mayor James Cahill said Wednesday there is usually a crossing guard there, but the guard resigned on April 8. The city was in the process of training a replacement, but in the meantime, Cahill said an officer should have been posted.
No officer was available because police were dealing with an incident in which shots had been fired from a car earlier in the day.
The victims, 14-year-old Joselyn Pelaez, 14-year-old Arly Melquiadez and her 6-year-old younger brother John Mejia, were taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. All three are expected to make full recoveries.
Hundreds of people marched to the New Brunswick City Council meeting Wednesday night, demanding improvements at the intersection where the accident took place.
Witnesses say it was a clear day and that there was nothing obstructing the view of Rawls, so the victims' relatives are demanding to know how he failed to see them.
Rawls, 56, was on duty and immediately called authorities. Cahill said Rawls is very upset over what happened and has taken a few days off.
The prosecutor's office would not say how fast Rawls was driving at the time of the crash or how the incident happened. At the hospital Tuesday night, Joselyn's uncle said the family is outraged.
"I wanna know, if this guy work for the city, why he has no respect the law," he said. "The mayor come to see us and says sorry. That's nothing for me."
Anyone with information is asked to call Investigator Jeffrey Temple of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office at (732) 745-3373.
