A dedicated, hard-working Chinese immigrant was one of two people hit and killed in Elmhurst on Monday morning, a family member told the Post.
Min Tin Cheng, 59, had walked four blocks toward his job at a construction site and had just one more block to go when a 22-year-old barreling west on Queens Boulevard lost control of his Camaro and struck Cheng, police and family said.
“It’s a very tragic moment for all of us,” the victim’s distraught nephew Hok Cheng, 44, said. “We just found out this terrible news.”
The family man and a 41-year-old walking nearby were killed after the out-of-control driver, with two active arrests warrants, slammed into a payphone, struck two parked cars, jumped the curb and hit both pedestrians around 7:30 a.m., near Broadway, sources said.
“I’m wordless,” the elder victim’s nephew said. “I don’t know what to say. He was just one block from work. There were lots of pedestrians. Was the driver drunk? The car was scrunched like paper. I don’t know how you do something like that.”
Cheng was born in China before moving to Hong Kong and eventually settling in Queens with his wife and four children, who are all grown now.
“He worked so hard so he could provide for all of them,” his nephew said. “He loved his family very much and we all loved him so much.”
The driver was taken to Elmhurst Hospital for injuries, then taken into custody there because of the warrants, police said.
He has not been charged yet but it appears he was speeding, police sources said. Neither the driver nor the second victim’s name have been released.