Dante Lennon: Drunk Mercedes driver, 22, kills 3 women leaving party in Long Island crash
LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK: Three young women were killed when a drunken driver allegedly crashed into their livery car after they left a Sweet 16 party on Long Island, police and sources confirmed. Dante Lennon, 22, was driving a Mercedes-Benz sedan when he allegedly T-boned a Lincoln Town Car on Jericho Turnpike in New Hype Park, killing three women inside the vehicle, Nassau County Police Department said. The driver and two other passengers had to be rushed to the hospital. They are reportedly in a stable condition.
The three women were pronounced dead at the scene. A law enforcement source told New York Post that the women who died had just left a Sweet 16 party at the Inn at New Hyde Park. According to the venue's website, it hosts weddings, bar mitzvahs, Quinceañeras, among other events.
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Surveillance footage obtained by CBS2 shows the driver of the Lincoln turning left onto Jericho Turnpike gradually when the Mercedes crashes into it. The collision sends the two cars flying down the road, the video reportedly shows.
A witness working at a nearby restaurant said he heard a loud noise and ran outside. On the road, he saw the two destroyed cars and called 911. “Right away, I just see a Mercedes-Benz coming through, crashing into an Uber driver that was turning,” Jaylen Augustin, a Table 7 employee, told FNTV.
Describing the scene, Augustin said, "It looked like a T-bone, a little bit, and it was devastating. Very disturbing, never seen that ever in my life. Why would that happen? I just can’t believe it.” Lennon, a Freeport, Long Island, resident, who was also injured in the crash, was taken to an area hospital. He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Lennon was charged with a DWI and three counts of vehicular manslaughter, police said. Cops also confirmed that he will appear in court when he is stable enough to do so.
This incident brings to mind another recent T-Bone horror crash in which two cars crashed into each other with such force that one careened into a nearby line of people at a food truck in April. The crash took place along Barton Springs in South Austin, near Zilker Park. Eyewitnesses said that a white pickup truck was traveling at a high speed and hit a sedan that was turning. As a result, the sedan spun off the road and crashed into the Holla Mode food truck nearby. The pickup careened onto a sidewalk, crashing into a nearby bicycle rack. The incident left at least two people in critical condition.
These incidents are among many other vehicular-related tragedies that took place in recent times. In March, six teenage girls were killed in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, after their car collided with a semi-truck. Around the same time, Jayana Tanae Webb was arrested for running over two troopers in Pennsylvania while driving drunk. In late January, career criminal Gary Robinson jumped a red light causing a deadly crash, killing as many as nine people, including a baby, in Las Vegas.