Bus kills pedestrian outside Philly police HQ; police talking to driver

Just after rush hour Tuesday morning, an enormous white tour bus lumbered down Race Street, turned left, and hit a middle-aged man crossing the street.

In the crush of Center City traffic, there were no witnesses to the 9:45 crash, police said - no one who saw the bus drag the man 50 feet, or spotted it heading for the I-95 ramp as the man lay fatally injured in the street.

But the cameras outside Police Headquarters - just feet from the scene of the city's eighth hit-and-run accident this year - had captured everything.

Investigators were able to track a bus they suspected to be involved in the crash to a bus company in Chinatown. Police were speaking to its driver Tuesday afternoon. Officials said it was possible the driver had not realized the man had been hit.

Tuesday morning, paramedics had rushed to the 46-year-old victim, later identified as Joseph Heard, to perform CPR. From her car, Beryl Krinsky, a Center City businesswoman, saw someone lying "twisted on the ground."

Pedro Madera, a maintenance man at the nearby Franklin Square park, said he saw the accident's aftermath.

"All I saw was a man lying on the street," said Madera, 65. "They were trying to help him, but he didn't respond."

Paramedics rushed Heard to Hahnemann University Hospital, leaving in the street his shoes and headphones, which had been knocked off. Firefighters cleaned up a pool of blood on the asphalt.

Heard was pronounced dead at 10:14 a.m., police said.

Heard was host of the show "Science 2.0" on G-town Radio, an Internet radio station based in Germantown.

"He loved science and would get you excited about it too. May he rest in peace," G-town Radio posted Tuesday night on Facebook with a photo of Heard from 2014 broadcasting at the Philadelphia Honey Festival.

"An appropriate location for a kind, sweet man," the station said.

The video footage captured at Police Headquarters was disturbing, Capt. John Wilczynski of the Accident Investigation District said, showing the bus traveling east on Race and then turning onto Franklin Street, where it hit the man in the middle of a crosswalk.

Pedestrians have the right of way at that intersection, as there are no traffic lights there.

The video helped investigators quickly follow a lead on a white tour bus headed to Washington.

The company that owned the bus, which police did not name, told police where it was headed and asked the driver to return to the city.

The bus made it to Washington, and its driver returned with the bus later in the afternoon to Philadelphia, where investigators examined it for evidence, police said.

awhelan@philly.com 215-854-2961 @aubreyjwhelan