INWOOD — A quiet Upper Manhattan corner looked like a war zone Thursday morning after a high-speed Corvette slammed into a Mercedes-Benz, sent the luxury SUV airborne, mowed down a pedestrian and left a trail of shredded metal and shattered glass.
Around 6:30 a.m., a gray Corvette was bombing eastbound on Sherman Avenue near West 204th Street when it T-boned a black Mercedes-Benz SUV. The impact was so violent that the Mercedes went flying backward, crashed over parked cars and a moped, then flipped onto its side on the sidewalk.
The Corvette kept going, striking a 34-year-old pedestrian walking on the sidewalk and launching him into the air before finally smashing into a building. Surveillance video captured the sickening sequence: the pedestrian flung off his feet like a rag doll as the sports car careened out of control.
Three people were rushed to Harlem Hospital in stable condition: the Corvette driver, his passenger, and the injured pedestrian (who suffered a broken leg). The driver of the Mercedes scrambled out of the wrecked SUV and fled on foot, leaving the luxury vehicle behind. Cops are still hunting him.
Police sources say the Corvette was tearing through the neighborhood at reckless speeds, witnesses claimed it had been driving wildly for more than an hour beforehand. Investigators are looking hard at whether the two cars were locked in a street race when everything went sideways.
By later Thursday, the 27-year-old Corvette driver, identified as Eric Torres, was under arrest at the hospital. He faces charges of reckless endangerment, reckless driving and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. Torres was driving with a suspended license.
The scene was pure carnage. The Corvette’s front end was obliterated, red racing seats exposed amid the wreckage. Debris littered the sidewalk and roadway — crushed metal, broken glass, a toppled trash can, and at least one other vehicle left unrecognizable.
Local residents weren’t shocked — just fed up.“It’s out of control. We need to enforce the law,” one woman told reporters. Another neighbor complained about the constant “violence on wheels” and called for more cameras. One longtime resident said street racers doing doughnuts and speeding through Inwood has become a regular nightmare.
NYPD’s Collision Investigation Squad is still on the case. The Mercedes driver remains at large, and cops are reviewing surveillance footage from every angle.
In a city already drowning in reckless driving, Thursday’s horror show in Inwood was just the latest reminder, when speed demons treat public streets like their personal racetrack, regular New Yorkers pay the price.
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