Not everyone is meant to be a parent, a difficult comment to argue against after a drunk driver put her 4-year-old in the backseat of her car not long before fatally striking an Uber Eats worker, who happened to be an immigrant who had previously sought and won his asylum in the United States. He was Bangladeshi.
Police investigating the scene found that the mother, Treasure Liggins, had been driving a 2007 Infiniti G35 in the vicinity of 105th St. in Canarsie when she lost control of the vehicle and collided with the Uber Eats delivery man, Mohammed Abdullah, who had been traveling on an e-bike. The accident occurred at approximately 10:35 p.m. on June 8. Liggins proceeded to careen into a nearby building.
Abdullah was only 29 at the time of death and was on his way home after making his final delivery that night. He was jettisoned from the e-bike and then rushed to Brookdale University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Higgins faces a number of charges for causing the tragic accident – manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and aggravated DWI because her child was riding with her at the time.
A smartphone app called Zenly can be used to track someone’s location. Abdullah and his friends happened to use Zenly, which prompted Abdullah’s friends to start making calls when he didn’t move from a single location for two hours. Eventually, they decided to head to the scene themselves, where they found a tragedy unfolding.
Abdullah’s roommate, Arifur Rahman Sobuj, said, “My friend called me and said Abdullah did not pick up the phone so we rode over there. And then I see the police. Then the cops say he is no more.”
Abdullah had sought asylum here in the United States in 2017 because he was the target of political persecution in Bangladesh, where he had worked small jobs and taught computer classes. Before achieving asylum, he’d been held in an immigration detention center for four months – a stark reminder that the current crisis at the southern border is reminiscent of a bad system that has been in need of change for a long time.
“He was involved against the ruling party, ” another friend said. “He won asylum and this year he was going to apply for a green card. And this will not happen because of this incident. Believe me, we know what we lost.”