Three people are dead after a car slammed into a food truck in Queens.
It happened at 42nd Street near 19th Avenue on Monday just after 8:30 a.m.
Police say a Toyota Corolla was traveling northbound on 42nd Street and struck two men who were standing near a food truck.
Three people were killed when a speeding car slammed into a food truck in Queens on Aug. 12, 2025.
CBS News New York
Surveillance video shows the car speeding down the street and slamming into the truck. The Corolla then slammed into a Volvo sedan driven by another man.
The 84-year-old driver of the Corolla and a 70-year-old pedestrian were rushed to the hospital, where they were pronounced dead. Their identities have not been determined. The other man, identified as Joaquin Venancio, a 42-year-old originally from Venezuela who had two children, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Tears flowed steps away from the gruesome crash.
“He was always happy. He would make you happy. He would make happy any person in the world,” Avelardo Venancio said of his brother, who was a manager at Discount Tire Group in Astoria. “It’s a very bad feeling because. It’s hard, it’s hard. Nobody deserves this type of end, you know?
“Maybe this time it was my brother. Maybe next time it could be anybody,” he added.
Food truck owner, witnesses describe harrowing scene
Giancarlos Caruso, the owner of the food truck, said it was the warnings ahead of the crash that made him instinctively step away, likely saving his life.
“I still have my life and I’m just grateful that something moved me out of the way,” Caruso said. “I heard the scream. I felt it in my back and I just stepped back one step and literally he must’ve grazed my leg. That’s how much I missed it by.”
Witness Jay Figueroa, who had just arrived at his job nearby, described what he saw and heard.
“Soon as I come back up, I heard the really loud crash and then I just heard somebody screaming,” Figueroa said. “Really, it was just blank. Honestly, I didn’t know what to think. My first time seeing a dead person right in front of me. There was really nothing to think. It was just a bunch of emotion.”
“When you see the lifeless bodies there you feel almost helpless, like, what can you do?” witness George Giakoumas said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
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