An SUV driver who struck a 7-year-old girl at a Queens intersection nearly three months ago was arrested Tuesday for criminally negligent homicide after cops determined she blew a stop sign during the fatal crash.
Claudia Mendez-Vasquez. 46, slammed into little Dolma Naadhun near Newtown Road and 45th St. in Astoria the evening of Feb. 17.
The girl hit her head on the roadway and suffered severe injuries. Medics rushed her to Elmhurst Hospital but she could not be saved.
Police said Mendez-Vasquez, who lives in Maspeth, was driving her 2021 Ford Explorer east on Newtown Road when she entered the intersection without fully coming to a halt at the stop sign and hit the girl as she crossed 45th St., just up the block from the victim’s home.
“I heard the screaming. I came down and the baby was lying in the middle of the street bleeding,” a nearby resident who wished not to be named told the Us.Mistertruth hours after the crash.
“Her mother was over her crying. It was terrible, just terrible. That poor little thing.”
Mendez-Vasquez remained at the scene. She was driving with her son and two other passengers, one of whom described what happened as “an accident.”
“We didn’t see them,” the passenger told The News shortly after the crash.