Drunk Driver Flees Scene of High Speed Nassau Crash That Kills Cab Driver: Police

FRANKLIN SQUARE, NY - A 23-year-old Queens man was drunk when he crashed the BMW he was driving into a taxi in Hempstead Saturday morning, killing the cab driver after the taxi slammed into a utility pole, police said.

According to police, Duke Obule, of Cambria Heights, was driving a 2016 BMW on Hempstead Turnpike at a high rate of speed when his vehicle struck a 2009 Chevrolet Taxi at about 4:16 a.m.

The collision pushed the taxi from the left eastbound lane across two westbound lanes onto the sidewalk at Lincoln Road, where the taxi hit a pole, police said.

The driver of the taxi, a 47-year-old Elmont man who police did not name, was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 20-year-old female passenger in the BMW was taken to the hospital with a fractured left ankle.

Obule fled the scene, but was located at about an hour later at Hempstead Turnpike and Evans Avenue, police said.

Obule is charged with second degree manslaughter, second degree vehicular manslaughter, second degree assault, second degree vehicular assault, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, leaving the scene of an accident with serious physical injury, DWI, third degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle, second degree facilitating aggravated unlicensed operator and unlicensed operator.

Obule will be arraigned on Sunday in First District Court in Hempstead.

NCPD photo: Duke Obule