Video shows NYPD van hitting and killing pedestrian on Brooklyn street

Recently released surveillance and body camera footage showing an NYPD van fatally hitting a man on a busy Brooklyn street in April raises questions about whether the officers involved were driving safely and following their training in the moments before and after the crash, several experts said.

Surveillance video from the night of the incident shows Officer Orkhan Mamedov driving through the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Schenectady Avenue around 8 p.m., moving quickly along a painted median, and striking Ronald Anthony Smith. Smith, 53, was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital after sustaining “severe body trauma,” according to police. The NYPD shared few other details after the crash.

Six edited and redacted videos released by the state attorney general’s office last month paint a fuller picture of what happened on the rainy night of April 7. They include four recordings from cameras mounted on police poles that show the vehicle’s path on Eastern Parkway and two recordings from the body cameras of Mamedov and his partner, Officer Evan Siegel. News of the video was first reported by Streetsblog.

The four videos from the poles are sometimes blurred by rain drops, and their picture freezes at several points. They show the police van with its emergency lights on, driving along rain-soaked Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights from Buffalo Avenue to Schenectady Avenue. At times, the van is moving quickly enough to pass nearby vehicles.

A spokesperson for the NYPD would not say whether the van was responding to an emergency call at the time. However, multiple news outlets have reported that the officers were transporting at least one person who was under arrest — not responding to a 911 call.