Ukraine

Woman Charged in Hit-and-Run Killing of Holocaust Survivor in Valley Village

A 68-year-old woman has been charged in the hit-and-run death last month of a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor in Valley Village.

Joyce B. McKinney was arrested June 21 in Burbank in the death of Gennady Bolotsky on June 17. She faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon, hit and run, and vehicular manslaughter, officials said.

Los Angeles police detectives found McKinney living on a street near the Hollywood Burbank Airport out of a cockroach-infested 2006 GMC Sierra pickup truck that they allege struck Bolotsky.

Several people who work near where the suspect was found said they complained to police repeatedly that McKinney was living in the pickup truck and defecating in the street and on the sidewalk in front of their business, said a law enforcement source familiar with the case.

The pickup truck had a North Carolina license plate and expired registration, the source said.

Bolotsky was walking his dog in a marked crosswalk on Magnolia Boulevard near Wilkinson Avenue when he was hit, officials said.

Bolotosky escaped the Nazi occupation and immigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine. He was a widower who enjoyed family and his pooch.

"No one deserves this, especially not my grandpa who came and survived literally everything," Bolotsky, the victim's granddaughter, said shortly after he died. "We wish you had a human soul to stop and call, and not leave him lying on the ground."

Copyright CNS - City News Service
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