IN CUSTODY: An NYPD detective has John Sanjurjo in handcuffs yesterday in the hit-and-run death of Kyrillos Gendy (below) and the injuring of the boy’s mother, Arini Thomas, and his sister, Gabriella. (Robert Mecea)
IN CUSTODY: An NYPD detective has John Sanjurjo in handcuffs yesterday in the hit-and-run death of Kyrillos Gendy (inset) and the injuring of the boy’s mother, Arini Thomas, and his sister, Gabriella. (
)
A man suspected of being the hit-and-run driver who mowed down an adorable 5-year-old boy on Staten Island turned himself in to police yesterday, authorities said.
John Sanjurjo, 33, was charged with leaving the scene of an accident after Kyrillos Gendy, as well as the boy’s mother and sister, were run over Friday night, police said.
Sanjurjo had got out of his black, tinted-windowed 2013 Mercedes-Benz 350 and saw the victims lying on the street before speeding off without helping them, witnesses said.
When cops recovered Sanjurio’s car from his New Dorp garage, it was a crime scene on wheels, law enforcement sources told The Post.
The vehicle’s roof was dented, and noodles and rice from the take-out food the family members were carrying were sickeningly strewn across the hood, roof and trunk.
“He just ran into all three of them,” the boy’s uncle, Magdy Gendy said.
“He stopped, got out of the car and saw them all lying on the ground,” Gendy said, recalling the moment he saw his family struck.
“Then he went back to his car and drove. Everyone was screaming and saying, ‘Help us!’ ”
The South Amboy, NJ, family was returning from a prayer service at a relative’s house in Dongan Hills when were struck at around 10:25 p.m. near Richmond Road and Newberry Avenue.
The driver had just pulled out of Diddle Dee Bagel & Deli when he hit Kyrillos, as well as his mother, Arini Thomas, 34, and sister, Gabriella, 9.
Gallingly, he got out of the car, surveyed the carnage, got back in the vehicle and fled, witnesses told cops.
“I ran outside the house and [Kyrillos] was lying there on the floor in his blood, him and the mother,” recalled the victim’s cousin, Amanda Gendy.
“There was no heartbeat. We took him to the hospital. They rushed him into surgery, but he didn’t make it,” the distraught cousin said.
“His blood pressure was too low,” she said. “He’s gone.”
Relatives said Kyrillos — or “Kero,” as he was known to family and friends — had been looking forward to pre-kindergarten, and his mother had planned to register him yesterday.
Kyrillos’ mom and sister remain hospitalized with minor injuries, cops said.
“The mother is in a phase of denial right now. She has no words,” the boy’s cousin, dam Gendy, said. “The father is an absolute mess.”