The family of a delivery driver is demanding answers a month after a U.S. Park Police chase of a suspected stolen car ended in a crash on a Washington bridge, killing him.
“It’s been a month of not knowing what actually happened to him,” the man’s niece María Laura Ines Martínez Cespedes said in Spanish at a news briefing Monday. “We want justice. We want the truth. We want to see a video. We want evidence. We want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anybody else.”
Nolberto Armando Sanabria Meza was driving his moped north across the William Howard Taft Bridge on June 20 when a driver in a 2014 Honda Accord being pursued by Park Police sped south, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with Sanabria, according to D.C. police.
The driver of the Honda Accord, which was suspected of being stolen, did not stop, D.C. police said.
On Monday, Sanabria’s two nieces, who live in Maryland, gathered outside the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. to demand answers about the circumstances surrounding their uncle’s death — and about why charges were dropped against the people who allegedly stole the vehicle.
“As of today, no one has been arrested, no one is charged. All of this has been a total injustice,” Sanabria’s niece Verónica Andrea Sanabria Cespedes said in Spanish at the news briefing.
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. said the office did not have all of the information needed to make a decision. “Once the facts are clear and the evidence is in hand we will make a charging decision,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Many law enforcement agencies around the United States have policies that restrict officers from pursuing vehicles in high-speed chases, according to police pursuit experts. D.C. police policy allows car chases only when the driver is putting other lives in danger or is suspected of committing a violent crime. D.C. police did not engage in the chase that ended in Sanabria’s death, a spokesperson said.
The Park Police previously had a policy that allowed pursuits only for people wanted for violent felonies. That changed last August when the Park Police announced that those chase restrictions were gone. “If you flee from a traffic stop in DC, we will chase you — and we will catch you. Tell your friends,” the Park Police union said in a post on X.
The policy change came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order placing the D.C. police under direct federal control and deploying the National Guard to Washington’s streets, where they remain.
The Park Police referred The Washington Post to its statement posted on X following the crash that killed Sanabria. In it, the Park Police extended its condolences to Sanabria’s loved ones. “Public safety remains our highest priority, which is why we work to remove criminals from our streets,” they said.
Following the crash that killed Sanabria, law enforcement experts told The Post that the chase was reckless. Attorney Elizabeth Paige White, who is representing Sanabria’s family, said his death was a predictable result of the relaxation of the Park Police’s pursuit policy.
“Let’s be clear that Mr. Meza was the latest victim of Park Police’s dangerous and lethal chases that put every single citizen in D.C. at risk,” White said at the press briefing.
Sanabria left Venezuela in 2023 and eventually made his way to the U.S. with Verónica Sanabria. “We came here together searching for a better future,” Verónica Sanabria said Monday. “He had dreams, goals, a family that loved him.”
Since his death, Sanabria’s nieces said they have been unable to repatriate his body to Venezuela because of red tape in the U.S. and earthquakes in Venezuela in June.
Sanabria is one of at least 25 people who have been killed in D.C. traffic-related accidents so far this year, according to city data, marking a sharp uptick from 2025, when 25 people were killed in traffic-related accidents throughout the entire year.
At least one other case involved a Park Police chase. In March, a chase ensued after U.S. Park Police attempted to conduct a traffic stop on an allegedly stolen vehicle. The pursuit ended in a crash, killing the driver.
A D.C. police spokesperson said the vehicle that struck Sanabria was stolen out of Carroll County, Maryland. The Carroll County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The driver of the vehicle, 24-year-old Tomas Anderson, was initially charged with second-degree murder, while the two other occupants — 19-year-old Donnie Palacios and a 16-year-old male — were charged with unauthorized use of a vehicle during a crime of violence.
The charges against Anderson and Palacios were later dropped. The D.C. attorney general’s office declined to comment last month on the status of the charges against the minor because juvenile criminal proceedings are confidential under D.C. law.
“Why has no one been held responsible?” attorney Bernadette Armand, who is also representing Sanabria’s family, asked Monday.
Under D.C. law, being in a car without the owner’s permission constitutes unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, which is a felony.
“This family should not be a month out and not have any answers,” White said. “This isn’t a mystery. It’s not a hard case, not something that happened behind closed doors. It happened on the public streets of D.C. in the middle of the afternoon.”
White said they were considering taking legal action against “everyone involved — the police, the drivers, everyone.” She declined to offer details on the timeline for taking such action.
Armand called on the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. to release footage of the Park Police chase and crash. “There is no mystery here,” she said, “other than why this information is being kept from this family.”
Martínez said her uncle’s death has safety implications for the broader D.C. population.
“All of us that are on the street need safety and deserve to live,” she said. “This isn’t just for him — it’s for everyone.”
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