Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Brooklyn Driver Who Killed Two Kids Faces Manslaughter

The driver in a Brooklyn crash that killed a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old — including the daughter of Tony award-winning Broadway actress Ruthie Ann Miles — was indicted on several charges, ABC News reported.

Dorothy Bruns, 44, reportedly faces 10 charges for prompting the March 5 tragedy, including second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment and third-degree assault.

The two children were walking in a Park Slope crosswalk with their mothers, Miles and her friend Lauren Lew, when a 2016 Volvo reportedly accelerated through a red light and struck them. Abigail Blumenstein and Joshua Lew were killed. Both mothers were injured.

Bruns’ indictment came following a “thorough investigation,” which found that she had allegedly been instructed by doctors not to drive due to multiple episodes of seizures earlier in the year. It is believed that she was suffering a medical episode at the time of the crash.

“Her alleged insistence on driving despite doctor’s orders and serious medical conditions that prevented her from safely doing so was not only irresponsible, it was unlawful,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement.

Contact Haley Cohen at [email protected]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.