Driver arrested 9 months after fatal Brooklyn hit-run crash, family still mourning
By Nicholas Williams, Rocco Parascandola | rparascandola@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News and Leonard Greene | lgreene@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News
PUBLISHED: April 8, 2026 at 4:57 PM EDT | UPDATED: April 8, 2026 at 5:06 PM EDT
An arrest this week nine months after a fatal Brooklyn hit-and-run crash has done little to ease the pain of the victim’s anguished family.
Victim Nyron Shaw’s father said the driver who mowed his son down last year in Ocean Hill a day before Independence Day should face the maximum penalty for allegedly driving twice the speed limit and heartlessly taking off, leaving his son to die.
“She had no mercy for him,” Alim Shaw said. “How could you hit someone, kill them on the spot and drive away. That’s not right. I drive too and God forbid I hit somebody, I would never drive away. No way, because I know someday they will find me.”
Several major roads come together at that busy intersection, which included a construction zone at the time of the crash, just outside the Broadway Junction subway station.
Nyron was leaving the shelter just down the block where he was staying to visit a friend when he was killed, his family believes. A witness told News 12 Brooklyn at the time he may have saved a woman’s life.
“He pushed the lady out of the way and he got the impact of the vehicle,” Miriam Durieux told the station. “He flew up in the air like a basketball and fell into the construction.”
Cops arrested Zaria Pope, 24, on Tuesday and charged her with criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, reckless endangerment and several traffic violations.
Pope pleaded not guilty at her arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court later Tuesday and was released without bail. She is due back in court next month.
Pope, of East New York, was driving her 2019 Kia 52 mph in a 25-mph zone on East New York Ave. around 10 p.m. when she sped past a bus and hit the victim without stopping, according to cops.
Medics rushed Nyron to Brookdale University Hospital, but he could not be saved, cops said.
Nyron’s father said he still can’t stop thinking about the phone call from police that his son was struck.
“I couldn’t believe it — I was in disbelief,” he said. “I remember the cops telling me over the phone that my son is in the hospital and that someone hit him and drove away and that I have to come and identify the body.”
“When I went to see him, I couldn’t believe it was my son,” he added. “It was sad.”
Pope, an Amazon employee according to police sources, was on her way home from a work function when she allegedly struck Nyron, police said.
Pope’s lawyer, Paul Petrus, called the case “sad and tragic,” in a statement to The News. “Our thoughts are with the family and loved ones of the deceased during this incredibly difficult time.”
He cautioned against a rush to judgment.
Nyron was proficient in music and kept a song book filled with tunes he composed, his father said. The victim also liked to draw and had worked at Macy’s and Target. He graduated from Francis Lewis High School in Fresh Meadows, Queens.
“He was a good guy,” the father said. “He went to college and got an associate degree. He was a caring guy.”