Driver in Ford SUV Kills 4-Year-Old, Leaves Brownsville Scene
All My Boys
A driver in a white Ford SUV left the scene after hitting 4-year-old Zachariah Padilla on Rockaway Parkway near Linden Boulevard outside Brookdale University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, records and police reports say.
Location reported in Open Data.
What We Know
A driver in a white Ford SUV hit Zachariah Padilla, 4, on March 5, 2026, near Rockaway Parkway and Linden Boulevard. The city crash record logged the collision at 11:05 a.m. on Rockaway Parkway, with one pedestrian killed and one pedestrian injured. Press reports identified the boy's mother as Harmonie Wright and said she carried him into Brookdale University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police and advocates described the area outside Brookdale as a dangerous crossing; Transportation Alternatives called for a lower speed limit after citing 3,600 speed-camera violations at the intersection in the prior year. Police were still searching for the driver in the reviewed reports.
What happened on Rockaway Parkway
The city crash record logs the collision at 11:05 a.m. on March 5, 2026, on Rockaway Parkway, with one 4-year-old male pedestrian killed and one pedestrian injured. The record lists a Ford SUV traveling north and going straight ahead.
Police-based reports said Zachariah Padilla was with his mother near Linden Boulevard and Rockaway Parkway after a visit connected to Brookdale when he entered the street and his mother tried to reach him. A driver in a white Ford SUV hit him and did not remain at the scene.
ABC7 reported that Harmonie Wright said the driver hit her too and that she saw her son dragged about 150 feet. Wright carried him into Brookdale University Hospital, where police and news reports said he was pronounced dead.
Outside Brookdale, at a crossing with a long crash history
The crash happened near Rockaway Parkway and Linden Boulevard, just outside Brookdale University Hospital. ABC7 reported that the boy and his mother had been leaving urgent care across the street from the hospital before the collision.
ABC7, citing city statistics, reported that at least 30 pedestrians had been hit by drivers in cars and trucks at the intersection in the previous four years. Streetsblog reported 368 crashes within a three-block radius since January 2022, injuring 215 people, including 29 pedestrians and 11 cyclists.
After Zachariah's death, Transportation Alternatives urged city officials to lower the speed limit on Rockaway Parkway near Linden Boulevard from 25 mph to 20 mph. The group said a speed camera at the intersection recorded 3,600 people speeding in the prior year.
Zachariah Padilla and his mother
Police and news reports identified the boy who died as 4-year-old Zachariah Padilla. His mother, Harmonie Wright, told reporters she had just left Brookdale and then carried him back inside after the collision.
Wright described the loss in an ABC7 interview: "My house is silent. I don't hear no noise. All my boys make noise. I'm hurt right now." She also told CBS New York, "I want justice for my child."
What is known about the driver and the Ford SUV
Records and reports agree that the driver was in a Ford SUV and left after the collision. The city crash record lists the SUV as a Ford traveling north on Rockaway Parkway, and ABC7 reported that police last saw the driver's white Ford SUV northbound on Rockaway Parkway.
Some reviewed reports described the driver's route differently. Gothamist and Streetsblog reported that police said the driver was on Linden Boulevard, while other police-based accounts and the city crash record placed the northbound movement on or from Rockaway Parkway.
Police searched for the driver
Police recovered surveillance video, ABC7 reported on the day of the crash. Reviewed reports from March 5 and March 6 said no arrests had been made and that investigators were still searching for the driver.
CBS New York reported that detectives had security video of the driver's SUV but had not made it public, and asked anyone with information to contact NYPD Crime Stoppers.