A “sweet” and “fragile” 13-year-old boy was in critical condition last night after a tragic freak accident in which he was struck by the mirror of an unmarked police van as it drove along a street in Harlem.
Keith McKissick, of 20 Paladino Ave., apparently darted between parked cars on 125th Street at Madison Avenue before 1 p.m. when the van’s large, passenger-side mirror hit him in the head.
The boy was rushed to Harlem Hospital with a fractured skull.
His devastated family held vigil at his bedside, issuing a statement saying, “We ask for your prayers. At this time, we know God will hear them.”
The van, part of the Manhattan North Warrants Division, was not speeding at the time, as it headed west on 125th Street through a green light at the intersection, cops said.
That version of events appeared to be backed up by footage taken from a nearby store’s video camera, which caught the accident on tape.
The officers inside the van didn’t realize they had hit the boy until they were halfway down the block, cops said. Stunned, they returned to the scene to help him.
Tyrone Bivines, a pal of McKissick’s who saw the accident, said the boy was heading to a nearby pool when he was hit.
“He went spinning. He hit the car real hard,” Bivines said. “Keith’s mom is hurting really bad right now.”
The boy’s godmother Joyce Joyner cried at the hospital, “Why did this have to happen to him?”
“He’s so fragile, so small. He’s a sweet kid,” she said.
Another family friend, Bill Perkins, called for an investigation because of “various versions of what happened.”