Police have arrested a Harlem man for fatally mowing down a 3-year-old girl in July as she was crossing a Manhattan roadway with her mother and brothers.
Police arrested Devon Joseph, 41, on Friday morning and charged him with motor vehicle failure to yield to pedestrians for the collision on July 11. He received a desk appearance ticket for the charge, according to authorities.
According to an online campaign the family set up, little Jaynelyse Valdez was on her way to Harlem Hospital with her 37-year-old mother and two brothers, ages 2 and 4 months, to visit their terminally sick aunt in the ICU, along with a home-cooked supper for other visitors.
At around 7:40 p.m., Joseph, driving a Nissan Pathfinder south on Lenox Ave., left onto W. 135th St. and collided with the family in the crosswalk, according to officers. According to police, both Joseph and Jaynelyse’s families had green lights.
A witness at the time claimed that Joseph was the one who hit her, picked her up, and brought her into the hospital. “He was with his family, but he was not going to leave her.”
Jaynelyse’s condition did not improve despite immediate treatment.
“It was terrible,” the witness stated. “Poor baby and her mother. She was hilarious.”
Joseph also injured the girl’s 2-year-old brother, Jonvier; he only received a minor head injury, according to the family. The incident did not affect her mother or her baby brother.
After taking the youngster to the hospital, Joseph remained on the scene.
Jaynelyse was only a few days away from celebrating her birthday when she was killed, according to her devastated relatives.
“She was going to be four on the 15th,” little Jaynelyse’s paternal grandmother Kenya previously stated from their New Rochelle home. “She was so happy, so smart, so caring.”
Kenya, 52, asserted that her granddaughter is mature for her age.
“Jaynelyse was an old lady in the body of a little girl,” she told me. She began taking medication about 7 months ago.
Her first word was “Mama,” Kenya recounted somberly.
“There’s no words,” the little girl’s stunned father said at the time. “There’s no words for it.”