Police Seek Driver In Brutal Bronx Hit-And-Run
NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- The search was on for the driver who slammed into a little boy in the Bronx Saturday. Witnesses say the five-year-old was out playing when a car hit him and just kept on going.
Five-year-old Joshua Saunders was hospitalized at Jacobi Medical Center with two broken legs and massive internal injuries after being struck by a hit-and-run driver.
It was 7 p.m. Saturday, and several kids were outside playing, when neighbors saw Saunders dart onto East 214th Street near Paulding Avenue.
Witnesses watched in horror as a car they say was speeding slammed into the young boy. Arantxa Saunders was there to pick up her critically injured brother moments after he was hit.
"I was there beside him, looking him in the face, and I said, 'Bro, get up,'" she said.
"He went and hit the kid, and the kid went x amount of feet, actually went underneat another parked vehicle, and the car just kept going," neighbor Don Jarrett said.
Brown called the driver a reckless coward, and is confident police will make an arrest.
"I want him to turn himself in," said the victim's uncle, Livingston Brown. "How do you hit a little kid like that and drive off?"
"They catch this guy, put him behind bars," family friend Cleve Brown said. "He don't have no heart."
"I think it's a shame. He actually should have stopped, actually made sure everything was okay, but again, people come through, speed, and disregard the speed limit around here," Jarrett said.
Neighbors say that as family members keep vigil at Joshua's bedside, they'll push for speed bumps on the street – anything to slow down traffic.
Police are describing the vehicle involved in the hit-and-run as a dark green, older model Nissan Pathfinder.
