A Brooklyn man has been arrested after a three-car crash left four people injured and one dead in Gowanus on Sunday.
According to police, 38-year-old Alexey Ivanov was driving his Honda minivan northbound on Second Avenue just before 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 14 when he allegedly ran a red light and crashed into a 2006 Mercedes station wagon that was headed west on 9th Street. The force of the impact caused the Mercedes to collide with a nearby Dodge pickup truck.
One of the cars went up in flames, according to News12. Video of the incident shows firefighters racing to free people trapped inside the crumpled vehicles.
Ivanov and his two passengers — a 64-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman — were rushed to NewYork-Presbyterian/Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, as was the driver of the Mercedes, 34-year-old New Jersey resident Arturo Alberto Baez Cordero.
Cordero later died of his injuries, police said. Ivanov, the 64-year-old man, and the driver of the Dodge truck — a 49-year-old man who was brought to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn — were all stable on Monday, while the 38-year-old woman remained in critical condition.
Hours after the crash, Ivanov was arrested on a litany of charges including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, reckless driving, speeding, and disobeying a traffic control device, police said.
Since 2020, at least four people have been injured and one has been killed at the intersection of 2nd Avenue and 9th Street, according to NYC Crash Mapper. In 2023, cyclist Sarah Schick was killed by a box truck driver at the intersection.
So far this year, traffic fatalities across Brooklyn have remained flat, according to the latest police statistics, with 52 traffic-related deaths reported across the borough as of Sept. 14, compared to 51 during the same period last year. Before Sunday’s crash, no traffic fatalities had been recorded in the 78th Precinct, where the deadly collision occurred.
