Bronx Boy, 11, Dies After Being Struck On Grand Concourse

NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- A fifth grade student was struck by a car and killed while crossing one of the busiest streets in the Bronx Wednesday morning.

1010 WINS' Carol D'Auria reports crisis counselors have been sent to P.S. 9 to help students cope with the loss

Monique Mitchell, holding her youngest of four, was grieving over the loss of her second-oldest child, 11-year-old Russell Smith, reports CBS 2's John Slattery.

"He was a good kid, a very good kid, with a big heart," she said.

Smith was struck around 7:45 a.m. Wednesday on the Grand Concourse at 183rd by a midsized SUV heading southbound. The driver, a 49-year-old woman, remained at the scene. No criminality is suspected, police said.

"I didn't see him get hit, but the way he was laying on that street...shouldn't have happened," said bystander Michelle Jackson.

Monique was inside her apartment, just 100 yards away, when her child was fatally struck by a car.

"When he didn't come back right away, I looked out my front window window and I saw a whole bunch of ambulances and cop cars," she said.

She threw on her clothes and ran outside to see what happened.

"When I got there, I noticed my son's shoes in the street, and I found that it was my son who got hit by a car," she said.

The daughter of the driver, who was not in the car at the time of the accident, said she spoke to her mother about what happened.

"It was a green light and the child just ran into the car and hit the side mirror," she said. "The car had the light. He ran against the light."

"The way my son looks, it doesn't look like he was hit that way," Russell's mother said. "It looks like he was hit very, very hard."

Smith was rushed to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The boy was a student at P.S. 9, which is only a block from the accident. Crisis counselors have been sent to the school to help students deal with the tragedy.

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The intersection where the accident occurred has a crossing guard but, witnesses said, she was on the other side of the intersection some nine lanes away.

CBS 2's John Slattery asked the guard where she was at the time of the incident, but did not get a response.

Neighbors said the intersection was just too big for only one crossing guard.

"All I'm saying is that she can't be at four corners," said Luis Vasquez. "This always happens at this corner.  She can't be at four corners."