Staten Island man booked in deadly Brooklyn hit-and-run that killed two pedestrians

Police apprehended the alleged hit-and-run driver who struck and killed two men early on Friday morning in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.

Juventino Anastacio Florentino, 23, was collared at his home within the confines of Staten Island’s 120th Precinct just before 11:30 a.m. on July 11, about seven hours after the deadly collision.

The victims, ages 80 and 59, were crossing the intersection of 52nd Street and Third Avenue, under the Gowanus Expressway, around 4:20 a.m. when they were hit by a dark-colored BMW sedan, according to the NYPD.

A preliminary investigation by the department’s Collision Investigation Squad found the vehicle was traveling south on Third Avenue when it struck the pedestrians and sped away.

EMS pronounced both men dead at the scene. Their identities are being withheld pending family notification. Authorities have not said whether the victims knew each other.

Florentino was charged with two counts each of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of an accident without reporting, and reckless endangerment. He was additionally booked for reckless driving, disobeying a steady red light and traveling at an unreasonable speed.

Over the past five years, the three-block radius around the site of Friday’s fatal crash has seen 59 collisions resulting in about 80 injuries, data from CrashMapper shows. Of those injured, 65 were motorists, while the rest were pedestrians and cyclists. Three of the crashes were fatal, killing two drivers and one pedestrian.

Police recorded 10 hit-and-run incidents across the five boroughs in the first quarter of 2025, most of which remain unsolved, according to the NYPD’s quarterly leaving-the-scene report.

Separately, traffic collisions have killed 97 people citywide through July 7, NYPD data shows. That figure represents a 28.7% decrease in fatal crashes compared to the same period last year.

Updated on July 12 at 9:12 a.m.