Photo by EVG
Reporting by Stacie Joy
Charges are pending against the tow truck driver who struck and killed a longtime East Village resident on Feb. 5 while crossing 10th Street at Avenue C.
NYPD sources told us that the incident remains under investigation, stating that the DA's office "is still going back and forth on it if they want to prosecute or not. The NYPD Highway District Collision Investigation Squad thinks they might make an arrest."
When asked about the possible charges, the NYPD source stated, "That's what the ADA is going back and forth with. I don't think they are sure themselves, and that's probably why it's taking [so] long."
According to police and media reports, Merle Ratner was crossing 10th Street at Avenue C with the light at 7 p.m. to visit a friend when she was struck and killed by the driver of the tow truck who was traveling south on Avenue C before turning left onto 10th Street.
Police said Ratner, 67, died at the scene.
According to police and media reports, the 59-year-old driver of the tow truck, owned by Timmy's Automotive in East Harlem, remained at the scene and was given a breathalyzer test.
Meanwhile, the flatbed tow truck involved in the collision has been parked on Second Avenue near Sixth Street for the past week and a half. (Top photo.) Our police source was surprised to hear that the truck remained in this spot, located around the corner from the 9th Precinct on Fifth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue.
Journalist Liam Quigley pointed out the truck's rear license in an X post on Feb. 8.
According to the How's My Driving NYC account, the plate has 86 violations, including 18 school zone speed violations and six red light camera violations — with over $9,700 in fines.This is the tow truck in the crash that killed Merle Ratner earlier this week. The license plate is completely defaced — a common practice in the industry pic.twitter.com/15jL1hduD1
— Liam Quigley (@_elkue) February 9, 2024
Ratner grew up in the Bronx and lived in the East Village starting in the 1980s. She was a co-coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign. She also worked as a labor rights organizer at the International Commission for Labor Rights ... and served on the board at the Laundry Workers Center, which organizes low-wage immigrant laundry and food service workers.
Here's more from Ratner in an EVG interview with James Maher in 2017:
My family has a history — my grandmother, when she came from Odessa, was the first woman business agent at the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, and my mother was a member of Local 1707 Day Care Workers. I have a picture in my house of my grandmother; it must have been in the 1920s, with a long skirt with a bustle, the very traditional thing that women wore, holding a picket sign with her friend that said, 'Don’t be a scab.'"
Ngô Thanh Nhàn talked with The Village Sun about his wife of 40 years.
"She loved life and was always thinking about ways to build a society that supports people, not profit," he said.
