Albuquerque driver arrested after fatal red-light crash, police say

A red-light violation on a familiar Albuquerque corridor turned deadly when a red Honda slammed into another car near Frontage Road and Fourth Street, leaving Charles Thomas trapped inside his vehicle and later dead at the hospital. New Mexico State Police said the other driver, 20-year-old Anthony Ferraro of Albuquerque, was arrested on charges of vehicular homicide, DUI and driving while his license was revoked.

Thomas had to be extricated from the wreckage after the impact around 2 a.m. Monday, June 1, a sign of how hard the collision hit and how quickly a routine stretch of roadway became a fatal crime scene. A woman riding in Ferraro’s car was also injured. Police said an officer at the scene observed signs of intoxication, but Ferraro could not complete sobriety testing because of injuries from the crash.

The arrest pushes the case beyond a traffic death and into a broader question for Albuquerque and Bernalillo County: how a driver facing revocation allegations was still on the road long enough to run a red light and kill another motorist. Officers were already working an unrelated crash nearby when they heard the impact and rushed to the scene, which meant help arrived quickly, but not quickly enough to save Thomas.

The crash also lands in a state where impaired driving remains a persistent public-safety problem. New Mexico recorded 454 traffic fatalities in 2025, including 129 alcohol-related deaths, and the University of New Mexico Geospatial and Population Studies tracks alcohol-involved crashes, injuries, arrests and convictions in its annual DWI report. In Albuquerque, that statewide toll is not abstract. It is measured at intersections like Frontage Road and Fourth Street, where one violent collision can turn an ordinary commute into a criminal case and a family loss that cannot be undone.