Nearly 50,000 Demand Murder Charge For Driver Who Hit 4-Year-Old

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — Almost 50,000 New Yorkers want the driver who ran over and killed 4-year-old Luz Gonzalez to face murder charges.

A new petition is calling for Police Commissioner James O’Neill to charge Jeannette Maria for hitting the little girl with her car outside a Bushwick laundromat at Wyckoff Avenue and Hart Street on June 24.

Police ruled Maria, 38, could not be held criminally responsible for driving away after her 2018 Nissan Rogue struck Gonzalez because she didn’t realize the girl had been hit, the Daily News first reported.

“We the people are not okay with this outcome,” the petition reads. “Jeannette Maria needs to be charged for the MURDER of this precious child and should not be given a free pass.”

The petition, addressed to the NYPD, had been signed by 45,323 people by Friday.

Police told Patch the investigation remains ongoing, but as of July 20, the NYPD Collision Investigation Squad and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office believe "that there is no criminality."

Gonzalez’s death has sparked outrage, not only against the NYPD for declining to charge Maria, but also against legislators in Albany who failed to renew the speed camera program that monitors drivers near city schools.

Gonzalez’s parents, Juan Gonzalez and Reyna Candia, marched the streets of Brooklyn with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams to demand state Senators return to Albany and vote on the speed camera bill.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has since demanded Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan reconvene the state Senate, but it remains unclear whether he will do so before the current speed camera law expires on July 25.

The city has since responded to the family’s demands for justice by shuttering the laundromat parking lot that cars had to drive over the sidewalk to access.

But the thousands of New Yorkers who signed the petition said Marie should be charged and questioned how she failed to notice she hit Gonzalez and her mother, who had bent down to tie the little girl's shoe.

" This needs further investigation it is clear she had to have felt the bumps," wrote Fatima Mendez. "The little girl needs justice."

"She hit two people and kept driving," added Shakerria Henderson-Smith. "This is a complete disgrace. That woman needs to be in jail for murder."

Photo by Kathleen Culliton