Good Samaritan killed on Prospect Expressway

From the Times’ “Metro Briefing” on Thursday, page B4 of the print edition, link to online archived version here

A man who stopped to help a driver in a disabled car on the Prospect Expressway early yesterday was killed when a drunken driver in a third car smashed into his car and the broken-down vehicle, the police said. The police said the victim, Rafael Rafailov, 50, stopped to assist a vehicle that was stopped in the middle southbound lane about 1:20 a.m. Mr. Rafailov and the driver of the disabled car were outside their vehicles when a car driven by Alexey Bushuyev, 22, of Brooklyn, struck their cars, the police said. Mr. Bushuyev and the driver of the disabled car, who was not identified, suffered minor injuries. Mr. Rafailov was declared dead at the scene, the police said. Mr. Bushuyev was charged with driving while intoxicated.

This is, of course, quite disturbing, and sad.

I’d like to know how this fatality is reported in the Times. Is its newsworthiness becasue it involves a crime (drunken driving) and a death? My impression, as a reader of the Times for longer than I’d like to admit, is that a story either one of those elements - but not both wouldn’t make it into the paper - and the sine qua non is not the fatality - but the arrest. Which is likely generated via NYPD press release.

And if this is all the information we’re getting from the paper of record about traffic safety on the Prospect - what we’re seeing is a narrowly selected grop of trees - but not a cue about the size, shape, color, or age of the forest.

Cross-posted on www.catonstratford.com .