A Queens man was sentenced to 28 1/2 years to life in prison for a deadly Mother’s Day hit-and-run crash in 2022 that pinned the victim in between two vehicles in front of her home home, the local district attorney’s office announced.
Roosevelt Rose, 59, was convicted in July of murder in the second degree, assault, criminal mischief and leaving the scene of an incident without reporting in connection to the hit-and-run that killed 49-year-old Florence Ngwu in front of her South Jamaica home, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said Tuesday.
According to the charges and court testimony, on May 8, 2022, at around 8:30 a.m., Rose was driving a white 2019 Ford F-550 truck, that belonged to a construction company and that he never drove before, on 120th Avenue, a dead-end street in South Jamaica.
While driving, Rose tried to do a K-turn in front of Ngwu’s home, hitting Ngwu’s daughter’s BMW. Upon hearing the crash, Ngwu and her daughter went outside and called police to report what happened.
At this point, the district attorney said, Rose continued to try to turn the vehicle and hit the BMW again, ignoring bystanders shouting for him to stop. Instead he accelerated, hit a parked Chevy Equinox, pushing it almost 15 feet into Ngwu, her daughter and a neighbor — crushing Ngwu between the Chevy and another parked car. Rose fled the scene, abandoning the truck outside a church a mile-and-a-half away, although video surveillance captured Rose exciting the truck.
The impact caused Ngwu to end up with a lacerated spinal cord, a torn brainstem and other serious injuries. She died from her injuries at a hospital the next day.
“The defendant behaved recklessly to the point of depravity and without regard for the consequences of his actions on Mother’s Day 2022 when he hit two parked cars while driving a commercial pickup truck – causing one vehicle to strike and kill Florence Ngwu. Prior to that day, Roosevelt Rose had never operated a vehicle of this size and power. We hope that today’s sentence brings comfort and solace to Florence Ngwu’s family,” Katz said.