Disturbing video shows hit-and-run BMW driver fatally strike two men before speeding off in failed getaway

A speeding hit-and-run driver fatally slammed into two men walking with shopping carts near a Brooklyn food pantry Friday – sending them flying before speeding off in a failed getaway attempt. 

Video obtained by the Post shows the victims – identified by police as Kex Un Chen, 80, and Faqiu Lin, 59 – crossing Third  Avenue at 52nd Street in Sunset Park in the crosswalk when the motorist whizzed through the intersection, allegedly against a steady red light, and struck them both. 

One of the men was hurled across the intersection and struck a lamp post before falling to the ground, while the other was left in the intersection. 

5

The screeching sedan kept going, leaving both victims lifeless on the pavement as a handful of pedestrians passed the scene.

Both victims, who were not immediately identified pending family notification, were pronounced dead at the scene by EMS.

It did not appear the two victims were walking together, and cops believe both were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The motorist, identified by police as Juventino Anastacio Florentino, 23, was later arrested at his home in Staten Island’s West Brighton neighborhood – where the silver sedan was in the driveway, cops said. 

He was slapped with a laundry list of charges: two counts each of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, reckless endangerment, as well as one count each of reckless driving, failure to yield at a red light and imprudent speed, police said. 

He has no prior arrests, cops said. 

Florentino said nothing and attempted to avoid eye contact with reporters as detectives escorted him out of Staten Island’s 120th Precinct Friday afternoon, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Buffalo,” sweatpants and sandals. 

5

A witness to the pre-dawn crash who works at a local billboard company and only gave his first name, Gregory, said the two men appeared to have been coming from a local food pantry, the City Harvest Resource Center. 

But they left with their carts empty, likely because the food wasn’t ready yet or the pantry was out of food, said Gregory, who was heading to work at the time. 

5

“I saw, you know, the bodies,” he said. “You know, I was thinking of helping or something, but I could understand right away that I could not do anything because stuff was open. The head was [split] open. The head was completely in half.”

“I think it was like the younger guy – he was right there on the sidewalk and the face was up, I saw the face. It was like really bad damage to the face,” Gregory added. “It was completely bruised.”

5

“The irony is they didn’t get any food,” he said. “They had empty bags.”

Naomi Zhang, 27, an accountant who has lived in the neighborhood since 2012, covered her mouth in shock as she watched the footage of the crash. 

“It’s a local community – they should drive slowly,” Zhang said. “He didn’t stop. He didn’t slow down. That’s not allowed. The speed limit is 25 miles.” 

5

“I wish he can at least pay for what he did, so he can go to jail or something,” she added. “He must be punished, otherwise he will not learn.”

State Senator Stephen Chan, who represents the area and stopped by the scene Friday afternoon, called the fatal hit-and-run “another senseless death that came out of the free-for-all chaotic landscape that we have seen in New York in the last few years.”

“How many of these deaths do we have to have before people realize these are not victimless crimes,” Chan said. “There were families that lost their loved ones who lost their fathers and mothers, their kids, and their uncles and aunts and their friends.”

“Two of my constituents who live in my district were run over, just crossing the street, by a speeding motor vehicle that left the scene last night,” he added. “Four o’clock in the morning, there’s nobody around. I know there are cameras over here, but that’s not gonna stop a car from speeding. Stop the driver. The driver is the person [responsible].”