NEW YORK — Minutes before the crash, they were strangers inhabiting vastly different Brooklyns.
Raizy and Nathan Glauber, a recently married couple filled with the worry of first-time parents-to-be, climbed into a livery cab and headed to the hospital to check on her pregnancy.
Julio Acevedo, 44, who struggled with alcohol and a history of serious criminal activity, took the wheel of a borrowed BMW, the police said.
In the early Sunday morning darkness, the BMW slammed into the side of the livery car, causing injuries that claimed the lives of the Glaubers, who were both 21. The couple’s newborn son, delivered prematurely in an emergency procedure, succumbed to the trauma on Monday.
The baby’s death strengthened calls in the couple’s tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg to bring serious criminal charges against the driver. He had served time in prison for a 1987 killing and was charged last month with drunken driving.
Paul Browne, the chief spokesman of the New York Police Department, said Acevedo had not yet contacted the police and would face, at the minimum, charges for fleeing the scene of an accident.
The BMW’s owner, Takia Walker, 29, of the Bronx, was arrested Sunday on charges of insurance fraud. Hamilton said the woman and Acevedo did not know each other and that Acevedo had probably borrowed the car from a mutual friend.
Two weeks ago, when Acevedo was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, he was released on his own recognizance. He is to appear in court April 10.
In the accident Sunday, Browne said, Acevedo was driving the BMW “at least 60 miles an hour when it hit the other vehicle."
The decision to bring strong charges will probably depend on the reconstruction of the crash by investigators from the Police Department’s vehicular crime detectives.
The baby was buried near his parents in Kiryas Joel, N.Y.
