A suspect has been arrested for manslaughter for a March hit-and-run crash that killed a 58-year-old woman crossing a Queens street to get a cup of coffee, police said Thursday.
Darius Adams, 28, was charged Wednesday with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault, leaving the scene of a fatal crash and reckless endangerment. He lives in the Bronx, according to cops.
Adams allegedly struck Suzanne Schmieder with his 2001 Lincoln LS on Jamaica Ave. near 158th St. in Jamaica about 2:55 p.m. March 11.
The victim was about 250 feet away from the crosswalk crossing in front of a bus picking up passengers when Adams, driving in the bus-only lane, sped around the bus, slammed into her and kept going, according to police sources.
The victim had just stepped out of a Social Security office — where she and her husband, Joseph Lopez, were applying to get out of a shelter and into their own apartment — to grab a coffee, her daughter said at the time.
“When she crossed the street to get the coffee, that’s when it happened,” Sydney Schmieder, the victim’s only child, said. “My dad went upstairs and he didn’t see it.”
“It’s disgusting,” Sydney said of the driver in March. “I hope that their day will come and that justice will be served. I do believe in karma and I think that they will get their karma.”
Suzanne and her husband had been living in a Queens shelter for two months after being evicted from their apartment. They were in the process of trying to get a rental voucher from Social Security, their daughter said.
Adams was arrested at a homeless shelter, police said. He has a prior arrest for assault harassment and weapon possession from April. He was released without bail in that case and is due back in Bronx Criminal Court next month.