Police charged a box-truck driver after a fatal Brooklyn crash.
After the School Drop-Off
William Cruz, identified in police reporting as the box-truck driver, struck Jenny Maribel Chacho Sánchez in a crosswalk while turning left at Gates and St. Nicholas avenues on April 17, 2026; the official record gives the time as 8:26 a.m., and reports say she had just dropped her daughter at school.
Location reported in Open Data.
What We Know
Cruz was turning left from St. Nicholas Avenue onto Gates Avenue when he struck Sánchez in a crosswalk after she dropped her daughter at school, according to investigators. News reports said she was taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, where she died. Police later charged Cruz with failure to yield to a pedestrian causing injury and failure to exercise due care.
A left turn at the crosswalk
Investigators said Cruz was driving a box truck and turned left from St. Nicholas Avenue onto Gates Avenue, where Sánchez was crossing in a crosswalk. The official record gives the crash time as 8:26 a.m. on April 17, 2026, and records one pedestrian killed. It also says she was crossing with the signal.
News reports said emergency responders took Sánchez to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, where she died.
A 2024 box truck
The official record lists a 2024 box truck. The Daily News and ABC7 described it as a 2024 Freightliner box truck.
A mother on her way to work
The Daily News reported that Sánchez had just dropped her 6-year-old daughter at school and was heading to work at a clothing-shipping warehouse in Greenpoint. The paper said she was from Cuenca, Ecuador, immigrated to New York City in 2012, and had been staying with her father and daughter in Ridgewood.
Her half brother, Christian Chacho, told the Daily News, “That was her last goodbye,” describing the school drop-off. QNS reported that her father launched a verified fundraiser to repatriate her remains to Ecuador for burial.
Her reported age varied: the official record lists 30; ABC7 and QNS reported 29; the Daily News reported 32 on April 19 and 30 on April 30.
At the Brooklyn-Queens border
The official record places the crash at Gates Avenue and St. Nicholas Avenue in Brooklyn. Streetsblog described the intersection as being at the Brooklyn-Queens border; coverage also used Ridgewood and Bushwick neighborhood labels. Streetsblog described St. Nicholas Avenue as narrow and two-way and reported 14 crashes injuring 12 people on its four blocks between Myrtle Avenue and Linden Street in 2025.
The driver was later arrested and charged
The Daily News reported that police arrested Cruz on Wednesday and charged him with failure to yield to a pedestrian causing injury and failure to exercise due care. News 12 also reported that he was charged.
Reports differed about what happened after the crash. The Daily News reported that police stopped Cruz about a block away and that investigators believed he had not realized he struck Sánchez. QNS reported that he made several deliveries before police stopped him nearby, and said police reported he told them he had not realized he hit anyone. News 12 reported that he returned only after police contacted him.