A woman was struck and killed by a car in Brooklyn in a crash that has left a close-knit block reeling, after the vehicle veered from the roadway and onto the sidewalk. The victim was a longtime neighbor and community volunteer, and word of her death spread quickly through streets where she had been a familiar and beloved presence for years.
The crash happened in the afternoon, a little before 1:30, according to people at the scene. Witnesses said the white car was coming down Rutland and made a wide right turn onto East 92nd Street. It was going fast, they said, and there was a loud boom as it struck street signs, a wall and also the woman who was on the sidewalk, an impact violent enough to leave the vehicle wedged up against the curb.
The woman who was killed was identified by family and friends as Yvette James. She had not been far from home when the car hit her, having lived right on the other end of the same block where the crash took place. That proximity made the loss all the more painful for neighbors, who knew her not as a stranger but as one of their own.
For much of the neighborhood, Yvette James was known through her service to others. Neighbors said she had volunteered at the food pantry run by the church nearby, and that she had been a regular there for almost 20 years. It was that steady, quiet presence at the pantry, week after week, that made her a fixture in the community and the way most people in the area came to know her.
In the hours after the crash, those who knew her struggled to put her loss into words. One neighbor remembered her simply as a very wonderful person, adding that she could be strict but was very wonderful and a very nice person all the same. The tributes painted a picture of someone whose firmness came paired with warmth, and who had earned genuine affection over her years on the block.
As the afternoon wore on, the white car remained up against the sidewalk while police worked at the scene to piece together how the vehicle had come to leave the roadway and strike the signs, the wall and Yvette James. For the neighbors gathered nearby, the investigation offered little comfort against the sudden and violent way a familiar face had been taken from a block that had long counted her among its most cherished residents.