Family at the bedside of a 9-year-old boy still recovering after being hit by a car on the way to school May 12 has heard the news they’ve been waiting for since that traumatic day.
Police have arrested the driver accused of running the child down in the empty parking lot of a shopping center on Minnesota Avenue in Northeast D.C. and then driving away.
The Metropolitan Police Department said following an investigation, it arrested 34-year-old Atoya Smith of Hyattsville, Maryland on the charge of leaving the scene of a collision.
The collision left the boy hospitalized with a broken pelvis, bruised lungs, a broken ankle and other injuries.
Davion Rawlings was taking his son, Zion, to school. They had just made a quick stop at a convenience store in the shopping center.
“Just kept going, like we was invisible,” Rawlings said. “I kind of heard to get out of the car’s way, but I look back and my son was on the ground.
In security camera video of the incident, Rawlings, who instinctively tried to chase the SUV on foot, can then be heard shouting for help with a level of emotion and intensity that everyone hopes they will never have to use.
He remembered one person, a woman, who came to help.
“She was the only person that had the initiative to take out her phone and call 911,” Rawlings said. “While everybody else just looking, watching me cry, pray.”
