{"id":699197,"date":"2026-06-12T06:24:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T06:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/699197\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T06:24:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T06:24:36","slug":"yonkers-student-chokes-to-death-on-donut-at-sonia-sotomayor-community-school-investigation-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/699197\/","title":{"rendered":"Yonkers student chokes to death on donut at Sonia Sotomayor Community School; investigation underway"},"content":{"rendered":"

YONKERS, New York (WABC) — A 12-year-old student died Wednesday after choking on a donut<\/a> at the Sonia Sotomayor Community School in Yonkers, prompting grief, questions and an active police investigation, officials said.<\/p>\n

Yonkers Schools Superintendent An\u00edbal Soler Jr. grew emotional as he described the loss during a news conference.<\/p>\n

“Our kids are hurting. Our staff is hurting. Our principal is hurting. I’m hurting. We never want to lose a child on our watch,” he said.<\/p>\n

Authorities said the sixth grader was in a fourth-floor hallway when a staff member saw him in distress. Additional adults rushed to help.<\/p>\n

“And within seconds, less than probably 10 seconds, additional adults came to support or try to administer emergency lifesaving procedures on the young man,” Soler said.<\/p>\n

School officials said the donut may have been purchased as part of a school fundraiser. Police are investigating whether the incident could be connected to an online TikTok challenge in which people attempt to eat food items in a single bite, though no link has been confirmed.<\/p>\n

“There’s always a general warning to avoid TikTok, to avoid scams and fads on the internet. We don’t know if that played a role here. If it did, we will get to the bottom of it,” Yonkers Police Commissioner Christopher Sapienza said.<\/p>\n

Parents said they want clarity about what happened, including whether school cameras captured the moments leading up to the choking.<\/p>\n

“They have a lot of cameras. That’s how I want to see what’s going on with him step by step. When he grabbed the donut, when he walked away. When he bit the donut. And then he passed out. We need to know,” said parent Raphael Otano.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, grief counselors were available for students at the pre-K through eighth grade school, and a therapy dog was brought in to comfort staff. The student’s family launched a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $35,000.<\/p>\n

The superintendent described the boy as a beloved presence in the building.<\/p>\n

“This young man was a bright light in the building. Everybody loved him. Everybody knew him. And he was energy. He was joy,” Soler said.<\/p>\n

The investigation remains ongoing.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2026 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"YONKERS, New York (WABC) — A 12-year-old student died Wednesday after choking on a donut at the Sonia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[302571,4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-699197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-302571","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}