{"id":155591,"date":"2026-03-06T19:48:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T19:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/155591\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T19:48:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T19:48:34","slug":"boy-4-killed-in-brooklyn-hit-and-run-told-mom-he-was-an-angel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/155591\/","title":{"rendered":"Boy, 4, killed in Brooklyn hit-and-run told mom he was ‘an angel’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday\u2019s hit-and-run that killed a Brooklyn 4-year-old<\/a> marks the second tragedy for his family, who lost the tot\u2019s oldest brother in a gruesome shooting.<\/p>\n

Little Zachariah Padilla will be buried in white alongside his older brother, Elijah Wright, who was gunned down last year, their grieving mom told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy God keeps taking my children. Why don\u2019t he take me? Why he takes them?\u201d Harmonie Wright cried from her Brownsville home.<\/p>\n

Zachariah Padilla (left) was killed in a hit-and-run Thursday. Obtained by NYPost<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a child. That\u2019s my child \u2026 my flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. Now it\u2019s finished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elijah Wright, 21, was killed last year after he was shot five times, Harmonie said, though she declined to share additional details about her oldest son\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Zachariah\u2019s tragic death occurred Thursday morning just minutes after he and his mother left Brookdale Hospital.<\/p>\n

The pair was getting the boy\u2019s paperwork, including his immunization papers, in order to be in compliance for school.<\/p>\n

Zachariah dashed into the street, where he was hit and then run over by a Ford SUV, which sped away from the scene of the tragedy and left the injured boy on the ground, cops and Wright said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were going back home and now I\u2019m hurt and not only did he hit my son \u2026 he hit him. I banged on the car \u2026 and then I got hit, too,\u201d Wright said, crying at times. <\/p>\n

Zachariah\u2019s older brother, Edgar (center) was recently killed in a shooting, their mother said. Obtained by NYPost<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you run over a child? Something gotta be wrong with you because you ain\u2019t gonna win. Know that we winning, know that you losing,\u201d she continued, pledging justice for her son.<\/p>\n

The boy was rushed back into the hospital, where he had just exited with his mother. <\/p>\n

Doctors conducted chest compressions for 30 minutes while Zachariah bravely fought for his life before ultimately succumbing to his injuries. <\/p>\n

\u201cZachariah, let me tell you what he said, he said, \u2018Mother, God has a lot of children. He said \u2018I\u2019m an angel,\u2019\u201d Wright said proudly of her son.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy God keeps taking my children? Why don\u2019t he take me?\u201d Harmonie Wright grieved. Paul Martinka for New York Post<\/p>\n

Wright was consoled by her son\u2019s school administrator outside her Brooklyn home.
\n Paul Martinka for New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a boy they kept working on. They [didn\u2019t] want to give up on him. They said we\u2019ve seen trauma every day, but this one is something different and it\u2019s breaking my heart. I just buried a child, my other child. This is hurtful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright has just one surviving son, Joseph, who was slightly older than Zachariah.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy house sounds silent. There is no noise,\u201d Wright said. <\/p>\n

The driver of the Ford SUV is still on the loose. Photos Peter Gerber<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hurts. I\u2019m a little disturbed right now, but God says, \u2018I\u2019ve got him\u2019 and I\u2019m gonna bury him in all white because he\u2019s an angel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright pledged to pursue justice for little Zachariah, whose murderer is still on the loose.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was my last child. His name is Zachariah \u00a0Padilla and we are gonna fight and we are gonna win,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thursday\u2019s hit-and-run that killed a Brooklyn 4-year-old marks the second tragedy for his family, who lost the tot\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[23335,98,100,99,473,57,9,24,63,58],"class_list":["post-155591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brookdale-hospital","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-hit-and-run","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}