{"id":17259,"date":"2023-04-03T15:21:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T19:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=17259"},"modified":"2023-04-03T17:52:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T21:52:37","slug":"lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLord Jesus I don\u2019t understand\u2026\u201d Five Children Die in Tragic Car Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Da’Shawna Cross \/ GoFundMe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Five children from the ages of 8 to 17 died in a tragic car accident on the Hutchinson River Parkway in Scarsdale, NY. A\u00a0<\/span>tweet<\/span><\/a>\u00a0from CBS New York reporter Tony Aiello identified the children as Anthony Billips Jr., 17, Malik Smith Jr., 16, Zahniyah Cross, 12, Shawnell Cross, 11, and Andrew Billips, 8. One nine-year-old boy was the sole survivor. He was in the hatchback of the car at the time of the crash and managed to crawl through the back with minor injuries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Malik Smith Jr. was identified as the driver of the car and was the cousin of the five other children who were his passengers. The car was a 2021 Nissan Rogue SUV, reported as rented by one of the children\u2019s family members. Authorities stated they believed that Smith fell asleep or was distracted and drove straight off the curve. \u201cA 2021 Nissan Rogue SUV was traveling northbound, apparently at normal highway speed, when vehicle veered off the highway, struck a boulder, struck a tree. The vehicle then caught fire,\u201d reported Westchester County Executive\u00a0<\/span>George Latimer<\/span><\/a>. The vehicle crashed at 12:20 am early Sunday, March 19, 2023.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was revealed that Smith did not have a permit or driver\u2019s license. Smith\u2019s father, Malik Smith Sr., stated that his son was in the habit of picking up his cousins and going to the mall. \u201cThat\u2019s his thing. He goes to the mall. He goes to get his ice cream with his cousin. They go to the movies. They walk around the mall. They do what teenagers and kids do, you know. So that\u2019s, it\u2019s just, I didn\u2019t know he was driving by himself,\u201d he\u00a0<\/span>said<\/span><\/a>. CBS 2\u2019s Lisa Rozner pressed the father on why his son was out so late with young children and without a license. When pressed whether he knew that his son was driving \u201cin general,\u201d Smith responded, \u201cYeah, I was. And I told him, his mother told him, his older brothers told him to stop driving without a license, without a permit. Anything happens, you get pulled over, and you get in trouble for these things. Stop doing this.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A woman who appears to be related to at least two of the children shared her devastation about the loss on\u00a0<\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>. \u201cLord Jesus I don\u2019t understand why you had to take our babies from us, please give us the strength, Lord God, these kids didn\u2019t deserve this. Like why is this happening,\u201d she wrote, sharing pictures and videos of the children. Her post was filled with condolences on the loss. There continues to be an investigation, and a toxicology report is pending.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five children from the ages of 8 to 17 died in a tragic car accident on the Hutchinson River Parkway in Scarsdale, NY. A\u00a0tweet\u00a0from CBS New York reporter Tony Aiello identified the children as Anthony Billips Jr., 17, Malik Smith Jr., 16, Zahniyah Cross, 12, Shawnell Cross, 11, and Andrew Billips, 8. One nine-year-old boy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":17286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cLord Jesus I don\u2019t understand\u2026\u201d Five Children Die in Tragic Car Accident<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Five minors pass away from a tragic car accident in New York after veering off the highway.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cLord Jesus I don\u2019t understand\u2026\u201d Five Children Die in Tragic Car Accident\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Five minors pass away from a tragic car accident in New York after veering off the highway.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-04-03T19:21:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-04-03T21:52:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/04\/car-accident_credit-DaShawna-Cross-gofundme-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\u201cLord Jesus I don\u2019t understand\u2026\u201d Five Children Die in Tragic Car Accident","description":"Five minors pass away from a tragic car accident in New York after veering off the highway.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\u201cLord Jesus I don\u2019t understand\u2026\u201d Five Children Die in Tragic Car Accident","og_description":"Five minors pass away from a tragic car accident in New York after veering off the highway.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2023-04-03T19:21:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-04-03T21:52:37+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/04\/car-accident_credit-DaShawna-Cross-gofundme-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident","name":"\u201cLord Jesus I don\u2019t understand\u2026\u201d Five Children Die in Tragic Car Accident","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/04\/car-accident_credit-DaShawna-Cross-gofundme-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2023-04-03T19:21:55+00:00","dateModified":"2023-04-03T21:52:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a"},"description":"Five minors pass away from a tragic car accident in New York after veering off the highway.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/04\/car-accident_credit-DaShawna-Cross-gofundme-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/04\/car-accident_credit-DaShawna-Cross-gofundme-scaled.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"caption":"Da'Shawna Cross \/ GoFundMe"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/04\/lord-jesus-i-dont-understand-five-children-die-in-tragic-car-accident#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"\u201cLord Jesus I don\u2019t understand\u2026\u201d Five Children Die in Tragic Car Accident"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a","name":"Leigh Pizzutilla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/824\/82495162063119d033794eb2206a0067x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/824\/82495162063119d033794eb2206a0067x96.jpg","caption":"Leigh Pizzutilla"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/lpizzutilla"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17259"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17289,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17259\/revisions\/17289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}