COURIER L 10 IFE, SEPTEMBER 3-9, 2021
Dyker mourns
6-year-old girl
BY JESSICA PARKS
The Dyker Heights community
came together on Aug. 26, in memory
of 6-year-old Tamy Quema Guachiac,
sharing words of desperation to end the
tragic slayings of people by reckless
drivers on the street.
Young Guachiac was walking home
from Leif Erickson Park with her family
on Aug. 24 when police say she was
killed by a 30-year-old driver who’d
sped through a red light.
Just two nights later, dozens of people
gathered at the scene of the crime,
saying prayers and leaving fl owers for
the young girl. Her family was joined
at the vigil by their pastor, Rev. Erick
Salgado and a slate of local elected offi
cials — including Democratic mayoral
nominee and Brooklyn Borough
President Eric Adams, state Sen. Andrew
Gounardes, Assemblymembers
Peter Abbate and Mathylde Frontus
and Councilmember Justin Brannan
— who all pledged their support.
Abbate told the crowd that the corner
where Guachiac was killed was the
location of a traffi c light that was longfought
for by the community for over a
decade. “It took ten years — ten years
— to get this traffi c light up we fought
for, and we wanted to end accidents
like this,” Abbate said. “I guess it’s not
enough, I think the truth is really got
to change the culture of driving.”
Gounardes and Frontus both
shared that they’d experienced traffi
c deaths within their own families
— Gounardes, 60 years ago when his
aunt was killed at just 12 years old, and
Frontus just two years ago when an elderly
member of her family was struck
down and killed.
“My family has suffered the loss of
traffi c violence two generations ago
and still that memory is raw,” Gounardes
said, adding that, as a relatively
new father, the pain of Guachiac’s
hit even harder.
“From the moment I saw the news
there was a traffi c crash her in Dyker
Heights … that a 6-year-old lost her life,
I started to cry,” he said. “And I started
to get so angry because every single one
of these traffi c crashes — every single
one — is completely preventable.”
This year is on track to have the
most traffi c fatalities of Mayor Bill de
Blasio’s tenure, despite the mayor’s
signature vision zero street safety initiative.
Street safety advocates called
on City Hall to take more drastic steps
to cut down on road fatalities, as the
number of motorists on New York City
increases during the pandemic.
At the vigil, one local advocate
begged the local pols to put a stop to
these types of deaths once and for all.
“Eric Adams has been with our
community through these years, supporting
The community left pictures and fl owers at
a memorial for Tamy Quema Guachiac at the
scene of where she was struck and killed by
a reckless driver. Photo by Arthur de Gaeta
us, but I am asking you in the
name of my son,” said Fabiola Mendieta,
a member of the group Families for
Safe Streets who advocates on behalf of
her late son, killed 15 years ago by a
reckless driver. “In the name of Tami,
in the name of our community, we need
to change this. We need actions.”
Adams spoke of the regularity
these kinds of tragedies are in the city,
and said he hopes the high bails and
multiple charges on the driver show
these kinds of tragedies can no longer
happen in New York City.
“This person is held on $50,000 bail,
we have to send the right message that
this is not how families should be devastated,”
he said, also speaking to the
journey Guachiac’s mother took from
Guatemala in 2018 in search of a better
life for her and her daughter.
“Here is a family who came to America
to live out the American dream,
only to see it turn into a nightmare because
of a reckless action,” he said.
Frontus said she was in support of
harsher penalties for traffi c deaths —
anything to stop them from regularly
happening. “If it takes different penalties,
if it takes harder rules to make
sure that people are afraid to do this because
they know it’s a high cost, then
that’s what it is going to take,” she said.
Brannan — who, himself, has
pledged to do better after being caught
speeding in school zones earlier this
summer — stressed that it takes a community
to ensure safety, and that people
all have an effect on one another
through their actions.
“I’ve realized when you are behind
the wheel of a car, you are not the only
person on the planet that matters, you
have to remember we are a city of we
and not a city of me,” Brannan said.
NO STOPPING