More than three months after a deadly Midtown crosswalk crash, a Bronx man has been arrested and charged in the death of actor Wenne Alton Davis. Police say the collision happened on December 8 at West 53rd Street and Broadway, when an SUV turned into the crosswalk and struck Davis. She was taken to Mount Sinai West, where she was later pronounced dead. The charge of failure to yield to a pedestrian was not announced until this week.
Driver arrested and charged
According to PIX11, NYPD officers arrested 62-year-old Md Abdul Shomuz on a charge of failure to yield to a pedestrian. PIX11 reports that Shomuz, who lives in the Bronx, stayed at the scene after the crash and was not injured. Police told the outlet they brought the case to prosecutors before moving ahead with the charge, and court records did not immediately list an arraignment date.
How the collision unfolded
Police told investigators the crash unfolded just before 9 p.m. on December 8, when a black 2023 Cadillac XT6 traveling west on West 53rd Street made a left turn onto Broadway and hit Davis in the south crosswalk, according to FOX 5 New York. First responders rushed Davis to Mount Sinai West with severe head and body trauma, and she was pronounced dead at the hospital, as reported by KTVU.
Who Wenne Alton Davis was
Davis, 60, performed under the stage name Wenne Alton Davis and built a résumé of small on-screen roles in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, New Amsterdam, Girls5eva and Blindspot. Her agent, Jamie Harris, described her as "a bright light" in a statement to the press, according to The Advocate, and friends remembered her as a longtime New Yorker with deep roots in the city’s acting community.
Legal implications and penalties
Under state law, failing to yield to a pedestrian is typically treated as a traffic infraction. New York City’s Right-of-Way law, however, allows the same conduct to be charged as a misdemeanor when a driver makes contact and causes physical injury. The city’s Right-of-Way provision in the NYC Administrative Code §19-190 and related Vision Zero materials explain that penalties can include fines, civil assessments and potential jail time. State rules also require drivers to yield to pedestrians who are in crosswalks.
What happens next
Per PIX11, the NYPD has now filed the failure-to-yield charge, and the case will move into the criminal-justice system. Prosecutors may consider additional counts after reviewing the full investigative file. Officials did not immediately release information on bail or an arraignment date, and attorneys for both Davis’s family and the driver did not respond to immediate requests for comment.
Why it matters locally
The crash and the delayed charge arrive as city officials continue to push for fewer pedestrian deaths, a central goal of the Vision Zero campaign. The case is likely to fuel ongoing debates over how aggressively police should enforce traffic laws and how safe Midtown intersections really are for people on foot. The city’s Vision Zero Year 7 report notes that pedestrian safety remains a top priority for both law enforcement and transportation planners as collisions continue to cluster at busy intersections. For more detail on those trends and policy efforts, see the Vision Zero Year 7 report.
