A teenager was killed in Gwinnett County on Thursday morning when she was hit by a car as it turned into a parking space at a condominium complex, police said.
Snellville officers were called to the Kings Gate Condominiums on Lenora Church Road after getting reports of a person hit by a car around 6:15 a.m., department spokesman Capt. Zach Spahr said in a news release. The girl was pronounced dead at the scene by Gwinnett fire personnel.
Family members identified the victim as 16-year-old Camaya Harris, Channel 2 Action News reported. According to the news station, Harris was hit in a parking space just steps away from her apartment as she walked to the bus stop.
“Camaya was my everything. She was my world,” the girl’s grandmother, Vern Wood, told Channel 2. Harris was the oldest of six siblings, the news station reported.
“To know her was to love her,” Wood said through tears. “And she’s gone just like that.”
No further information was released Thursday, and police hadn’t said if any charges were expected.
An investigation is ongoing.
The fatal pedestrian accident is the second involving a child in recent weeks in the metro Atlanta area. On Jan. 9, a 7-year-old girl was walking near her home in Acworth when she was killed in a hit-and-run crash, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. Her parents did not realize she had left the house, and her body was discovered around 10:15 p.m. that night.
The suspect, 47-year-old David Ngugi, was arrested Saturday on one count of felony hit-and-run after investigators identified him with the help of video evidence, the AJC reported. He was booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center, where he remains without bond.
Another similar incident took place on Halloween when an 11-year-old trick-or-treating with friends in Atlanta’s East Lake neighborhood tried to dash across a busy road and was hit by a car, the AJC reported. Devonne “DJ” David, a sixth-grader at KIPP WAYS Academy, was hit while attempting to cross Memorial Drive after dark. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The driver spoke with officers after the crash and no charges were filed, Atlanta police confirmed Thursday.
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