'He Needs To Pay For What He Did:' Mother Of Staten Island Hit-And-Run Victim Speaks Exclusively To CBS2
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A Staten Island mother is seeking justice after someone hit her son with a minivan, then sped away, leaving him with serious injuries.
Surveillance video shows 36-year-old Anthony Figuerola walking on the sidewalk on Targee Street around 2 p.m. Monday. He was going to the laundromat, listening to music with headphones.
Moments later, Figuerola crosses Frean Street and was hit by a silver minivan, CBS2's Ali Bauman reported.
Witnesses say he was thrown onto the windshield then rolled off and dragged for more than 100 feet down the block.
"When the ambulance came, they turned him over," said witness Hussein Muratovic. "His face was ripped and his clothes, you could tell that he was dragged on the floor because he was ripped from the concrete."
Ismet Tala also said he saw the bloody scene and was in disbelief.
"He hit him all the way down there and drag them over here," he said. "He knew what he was doing."
Figuerola's mother claims what the driver did next was even worse.
"He got out of the car, he looked at my son, and then he got back in his car and he reran him over, an officer told me," she told Bauman in an exclusive interview with CBS2.
Police found the minivan three blocks away with its windshield smashed and bumper dangling, but the driver was no where to be found.
"It's horrible; how does somebody just do that?" Figuerola's mother said. "He needs to pay for what he did to my son."
Figuerola is hospitalized in Richmond University Medical Center. A picture obtained exclusively by CBS2 shows him bloody and swollen.
"My son is in very bad condition, he's got a lot of facial bones broken, his pelvis is broken, he's got a lot bruises all on his back and he's barely hanging in there," his mother said.
She said that her son is awake and alert in the hospital but is unable to speak, and it's going to take several surgeries before his life can start getting back to normal.
Police have not released any information about the minivan.
The crash happened just one day after an incident on Westervelt Avenue, where police say 37-year-old Monique Knight was hit while taking her 4-month-old nephew out of her car's backseat after returning from a trip to Adventureland.
"Pinned the lady against the door of the car," said witness Reginald Van Dyke.
"Then I looked down and her leg was splattered," said the victim's friend Shanelle Browning. "It was just -- over."
In that case, the woman's quick thinking spared the baby's life.
"She was holding Carter and when she seen the car coming up so fast, she threw him back in the car," Browning said. "She threw him back in the car to protect the baby."
Police say Knight was taken to Richmond University Medical Center with a leg injury. Friends say she underwent surgery and is in critical, but stable, condition.
The child and his mother were also taken to the hospital for observation. The infant was not injured.
