Unlicensed Driver Hit Woman Crossing With Signal in Crown Heights
Police records and reports say Menachem Shagalow, an unlicensed driver, turned left at Brooklyn Avenue and Montgomery Street and hit Taibel Brod as she crossed with the signal; she died April 20.
What We Know
A 101-year-old woman was killed crossing Brooklyn Ave at Montgomery St in Brooklyn on an April evening. According to the police report, an unlicensed man driving an SUV turned left and hit her as she crossed the intersection with the signal. Police recorded failure to yield right-of-way and driver inattention or distraction as contributing factors.
A left turn as Brod crossed with the signal
City crash data records the April 8 crash at about 8:25 p.m. at Brooklyn Avenue and Montgomery Street, where a pedestrian was killed while crossing with the signal at the intersection.
The Daily News and Brooklyn Paper, citing police, reported that Menachem Shagalow was turning left from Brooklyn Avenue onto Montgomery Street in a 2023 GMC Yukon when he hit Taibel Brod. Both reports say EMS took Brod to Maimonides Medical Center with head injuries, and police said she died on April 20.
A Crown Heights matriarch remembered by family
Brod was a longtime Crown Heights resident. City crash data and the Brooklyn Paper identified her as 101; the Daily News reported that family members said she was 99, because she had escaped after World War II using another person's passport.
Her son Yisroel Brod told the Daily News that she walked from Crown Heights to Brookdale Hospital and fed patients there for many years. Family members described her as a devoted Hasidic Jewish matriarch, a mother of five with many grandchildren, who survived communism and came to New York in 1951.
Police records cite failure to yield and an unlicensed driver
City crash data lists failure to yield as a contributing factor in the crash and driver inattention or distraction for the GMC driver's entry. The same data describes the driver as unlicensed and records the driver as making a left turn.
Brooklyn Avenue and Montgomery Street in Crown Heights
City data places the crash at Brooklyn Avenue and Montgomery Street in Brooklyn, and news reports identify the neighborhood as Crown Heights.
The supplied Crash Finder context for this fatality also links to a Brooklyn street layer labeled Avenue U - Brooklyn, which recorded 867 crashes, 603 injuries, 43 serious injuries and 3 deaths from 2022 through June 1, 2026.