Van driver faces charges after 5-year-old killed in North Las Vegas crash
A 5-year-old boy was killed after being struck by a van after he was dropped off for school Friday morning in North Las Vegas.
The driver of the van, Guillermo Cchochi Senobua, 41, was later arrested by North Las Vegas police on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and not giving his full attention to driving and booked into the North Las Vegas Correctional Center, police said.
The fatal crash occurred around 7:50 a.m. on the 4600 block of Losee Road, between Craig and Lone Mountain roads, according to police. The block includes the Somerset Academy, a K-12 prep school, according to Google Maps.
Senobua showed no signs of impairment and voluntarily agreed to provide a sample of his blood, but after the draw was completed, police said they learned from a background check he had a warrant for his arrest on a DUI charge in Texas.
Police said that the boy exited the rear driver’s side of a vehicle and then ran across a driveway while on private property in a line of stopped vehicles with children waiting to be dropped off at school.
A work van, which pulled around from behind the stopped vehicles to get around them, then struck the boy.
The boy was taken to University Medical Center in serious condition but later died at the hospital, police said.
In September, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that 20 children had died on valley roads in traffic crashes, up slightly compared with the number of deaths from the same time last year, according to numbers from the Clark County coroner’s office.
Somerset Academy has a strict policy on the arrival of students to its Losee Road campus and closes its front parking lot to anyone other than staff from 7:20 a.m. to 8:10 a.m., according to its website.
“Please use the carloop to drop your student off,” the policy states. “Pull all the way around to the elementary building. There will be NO dropping students off on grounds except through the carloop.”
The policy also tells parents of the elementary school to not let their child exit the car until they have entered the unloading zone and a staff member has signaled that it is safe for the child to exit the car.
A spokesperson for Somerset Academy could not be reached Friday.
The boy’s identity and the cause and manner of his death will be released by the coroner’s office, police said.
The coroner’s office declined to identify the child Friday afternoon, and the police investigation into the crash is ongoing.
Anyone who may have information about this collision is urged to contact the North Las Vegas Police Department at 702-633-9111. To remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555, or at crimestoppersofnv.com.
Contact Tony Garcia at tgarcia@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307. Follow @TonyGLVNews on X. Review-Journal digital producer Marvin Clemons contributed to this report. Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on X.
