A driver on a suspended license crashed into a ride-share car in Brooklyn, N.Y., around 1 p.m. on Saturday and then hit and killed Natasha Saada, 34, and her two daughters Diana, 8, and Deborah, 5, and left her son, 4, in critical condition, the New York City Police Department told JNS on Sunday.
The New York Post reported that the family was on “a leisurely walk home from synagogue” on Ocean Parkway at the time.
“This is a very close-knit community, a very religious community. Today, we are here to talk about a tragic, tragic accident of a Shakespearean proportion,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference at about 4:45 p.m. on Saturday.
“To see a mother and her two children lost to a vehicle crash,” the mayor said. “This is extremely concerning and painful not only to the City of New York in general, but specifically to a very close-knit community. A mother going for a simple stroll on a sunny day was struck and killed.”
“As we pray for their families and this entire community, the city mourns this loss,” the mayor said. “This is a senseless tragedy.”
The NYPD told JNS that Miriam Yarimi, 32, was driving a 2023 Audi A3 northbound on Ocean Parkway at the intersection of Quentin Road when she hit a 2023 Toyota Camry, which a 63-year-old man was driving westbound on Quentin Road. Yarimi’s car continued on Ocean Parkway, hitting the Saada family, which was crossing the street in a crosswalk.
The mother and her two daughters were pronounced dead at Maimonides Medical Center, where the 4-year-old boy remains in critical condition.
The 63-year-old and his passengers—a 4-year-old boy, a 5-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man—were all in stable condition at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, per the NYPD.
Yarimi, who is also in stable condition, was driving on a suspended license, Jessica Tisch, the New York City police commissioner, said at the Saturday press conference.
“Speed certainly may have been a factor, and investigators are working to determine whether the operator of the Audi may have gone through a red light,” and a breath test was being administered for “possible intoxication,” she said at the time.
On Sunday, the NYPD told JNS that Yarimi is charged with three counts each of manslaughter in the second degree and criminally negligent homicide, and four counts of assault in the second degree. She is also charged with reckless driving, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, failure to yield right on red and speeding, per NYPD.
“I will call it like it is,” Tisch said on Saturday. “This was a horrific tragedy caused by someone who shouldn’t have been on the road. A mother and two young children killed, another child fighting for his life. A family and a neighborhood devastated in an instant.”
“May their memories be a blessing,” she said.
Yeshiva World News reported that “the woman’s husband was at home with their infant at the time of the accident, unaware of the nightmare unfolding just blocks away,” citing a neighbor. The publication identified the boy in critical condition as Pinchas Raphael ben Sarah.
It added that the funeral is scheduled for Sunday and that the mother and two daughters are survived by the children’s father and two other sons.