High-speed hit-and-run kills pedestrian

A Bucks County man who is suspected of driving his BMW while impaired wreaked havoc on the streets of Tioga-Nicetown Tuesday, dismembering and killing a pedestrian, totaling his own car in a fiery crash and twice escaping police custody, police said yesterday.

Luciano Rios, 30, of Croydon, has been charged with homicide by vehicle and related offenses for a destructive night of driving that began to take its toll when a 49-year-old man tried to cross Erie Avenue about 20 feet away from its intersection with 20th Street, police said.

As the pedestrian, whose identity has not been released, crossed the street southbound, Rios was traveling at a "high rate of speed" eastbound on Erie in his 2007 BMW 335i, said Officer Shawn Hughes, of the Police Department's Accident Investigation Division.

The front end of Rios' car hit the right side of the victim's body and sent him flying into the air - 173 feet, Hughes said.

One of the man's legs was ripped off by the impact and landed 20 feet beyond where his body fell, according to police.

He was taken to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Not stopping to render aid, Rios continued his destructive path to Clarissa Street near Bristol, where he rammed a steel bridge divider, police said.

The impact of that crash flipped Rios' car, and it hit a moving Dodge Durango filled with six people, Hughes said.

Two of the people in the Durango complained afterward of pain and the others were shaken up, but none was seriously injured, according to police.

The BMW came to rest in the southbound lanes of Clarissa Street, and Rios was able to crawl out of the wreck just seconds before his car burst into flames, Hughes said.

Within moments, officers responding to the hit-and-run at Erie Street happened upon the Clarissa Street crash site first and they placed Rios, who smelled strongly of alcohol, into a police cruiser, Hughes said.

At some point, Rios allegedly opened the cruiser door and tried to walk away but was quickly detained.

He was placed into custody about two blocks away after a brief foot pursuit, police said.

His only injuries were some head cuts, according to Hughes.

Along with homicide by vehicle, Rios was charged with involuntary manslaughter, driving under the influence and related charges, police said.

That stretch of Erie Avenue is notorious for speeding vehicles, residents said, adding that they have been begging for a traffic signal there for decades.

Resident Charles Guignard knows the danger firsthand. In 1973, he was walking across Erie Avenue at 20th Street when he was hit by a car. The impact left him in a coma for three months, he said.

"It's like the Indiana 500," he said. "They just don't think down here."

Sabra Crockett agreed, wondering aloud about whose father, brother or son the victim might have been.

"If there was a light there, that man might be alive today," she said. "We're all here for a reason, and it's not to be killed too early.

"We're born to die, but not too soon, and not like this."

Staff writer Dana DiFilippo contributed to this report.