The Brooklyn teen fatally struck on her bike is a Stuyvesant High School prodigy who was wearing headphones, had no helmet and was peddling against the light, cops said today.
Aileen Chen, 16, was only out for a quick spin before dinner when a 26 year-old BMW driver rammed into her at 62nd Street and 21st Avenue around 6 p.m. yesterday, police said.
The student was left laying blue-faced in the street and covered in so much blood that neighbors had to use towels to sop it up, a witness said.
The shaken, 26-year-old driver remained at the scene and will not face criminal charges.
Chen routinely rode with friends, but was riding alone that night. When she didn’t return her panicked family called police, they said.
“She always comes back or she would call if she wasn’t coming back until later,” said her cousin Dila Szeto, 25.
Yesterday her grieving family said they doubted that the smart student disobeyed a traffic signal.
“She was so young, so talented, so smart. We just don’t know how this could have happened,” Szeto said.
In many ways Chen was an atypical teen. She loved physics and wanted to become a doctor.
She also expertly played violin in the school orchestra since junior high school, and graduated in the top one-percent, her cousin said.
At Stuyvesant the sophomore continued to perform in the top tier of her class. She recently joined the school’s piano club too.
She just landed her first part-time job at a hospital, Szeto said, so that she could pay for a ticket when her favorite Asian rock band played stateside. Even though they hadn’t announced a tour schedule, the teen implored her strict parents to let her attend.
“Oh mom, please don’t stop me this time,” Chen said.
Chen was born in Vancouver and moved to New York in the fourth grade. Her parents hail from Hong Kong – and her dad who just recently opened a restaurant in Puerto Rico took a rush flight home when he received the terrible news, Szeto said.
The family went to see Chen’s battered body late last night.
“They couldn’t recognize her face at all. It was totally swollen. Her clothes were all bloody and thrown away,” Szeto said. “The only thing we have left of her is her iPod and her watch.”
Tomorrow, Stuyvesant Principal Stanley Teitel will convene with guidance counselors to plan on helping students deal with the loss. “My condolensces go out to her family,” he said.
Chen’s favorite physics teacher John Avallone mourned the loss of a top notch student.
“I cannot describe what a loss this is for the Stuyvesant community, and I can’t bear to think about what her family is going through.” he said. “Aileen was a joy to teach, with a special enthusiasm and such good nature.”
Additional reporting by John Doyle