A dollar van driver faces federal charges for throwing a “very powerful firework” into a Verizon utility van in a Brooklyn road rage incident and injuring two employees, prosecutors and law enforcement sources said Thursday.
Kevindale Nurse, 36, was driving a white dollar van with his 4-year-old son inside when he blew up the inside of the Verizon van on Jan. 31, injuring the two utility workers inside, the feds allege.
The workers saw Nurse’s dollar van moving erratically in Crown Heights, and at one point he cut the utility van off, according to court filings.
When the Verizon workers stopped at the corner of President St. and Brooklyn Ave., Nurse pulled up alongside them, the feds allege.
The van’s passenger side opened, and Nurse threw the explosive into the Verizon vehicle’s open driver’s side window, the feds said.
Video surveillance captured a “bright explosion,” and the Verizon van drifted into the busy intersection, prosecutors said.
The blast shattered the Verizon van’s windshield and set off its airbags. The workers suffered ear injuries, and neck and back pain, prosecutors allege.
The damage could have been worse, the feds said.
“Here, the risk of a broader explosion was particularly acute because the defendant’s target was a Verizon utility van full of equipment used to repair high-speed fiber optic data lines,” prosecutors wrote in a Thursday memo asking Nurse be held without bail. “Had the equipment caught fire or exploded, the results could have been tragic.”
Multiple witnesses saw Nurse throw the firework, the feds said. Nurse admitted he was driving the van with his son inside, though he claimed another passenger tossed the explosive, according to prosecutors.
“Unfortunately, road rage is an all-too common occurrence in our communities. But this dangerous and senseless attack on a busy intersection in the heart of Brooklyn was beyond the pale,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Thursday.
Nurse was indicted in Brooklyn Federal Court Thursday on an arson charge that carries a mandatory minimum of seven years and a maximum of 40 years in prison if he’s convicted.
The feds describe him as a felon with convictions for attempted reckless endangerment and first-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle — a charge typically given to repeat unlicensed drivers.
He awaits arraignment in Brooklyn Federal Court.
