Another SUV owner squashes another little kid

All SUV owners are like this. "You get in my way and i'll run you down."

BY MARLENE NAANES AND LUIS PEREZ

September 2, 2005

A 3-year-old girl being pushed along in a stroller in East Harlem was end yesterday after a sport utility vehicle heading into a busy gas station ran her over, police and witnesses said.

A long line of motorists jammed a BP-Amoco station at East 125th Street and Second Avenue as Iris Gonzalez, 28, and her toddler, Jamie Roman, pbutted on the sidewalk at about 5:30 p.m., police and a relative said. Two sport utility vehicles - one idling on a street ramp trying to get into the gas station, another trying to get off the corner lot - blocked their path, police and witnesses said.

The driver of the SUV heading into the gas station lunged forward, dragging the carriage under it before it barreled into a minivan waiting behind the pump, police and a witness said.

"They hit her like a sandwich into the van," said Franklin Mercedes, 39, a radio DJ.

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The driver's husband, Eric Salgado, said the driver of the other SUV, which fled after the incident, honked repeatedly at his wife.

"She got out to call 911 right away," Salgado said of his wife.

The driver of the minivan that was rear-ended, Larry Spriggs, said the mood at the station, where regular gas went for $2.99, was tense.

"It was frantic," said Spriggs, a construction worker. "Everybody was waiting, moving slowly. Nobody had patience."