Investigators have identified the driver they believe struck a 9-year-old girl who was playing in her yard Friday evening, DeKalb County police announced Tuesday.
The “male suspect,” who has not been arrested, faces charges of hit and run, failure to maintain lane, a stop sign violation, serious injury by vehicle and reckless driving, the police department said in a statement. Officials have not released his name or age.
The incident gained national attention after a surveillance video went viral showing the 2017 Ford Fusion speeding down the street and into 9-year-old LaDerihanna Holmes, who was playing in her yard with a friend.
READ MORE: DeKalb police have ‘good leads’ on who hit 9-year-old girl with car
Holmes was taken to the hospital in critical condition and is beginning her recovery, her family said Monday. She had a fractured skull, broken pelvis, several cuts and other internal injuries. The girl’s friend suffered an injury to her foot, police said.
Officials said the driver and passenger of the car left the scene on foot shortly after the crash on Cherokee Valley Circle.
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“They were right there among us,” Charlette Bolton, the girl’s mother, said at a press conference Monday as the family called for the two to turn themselves in. “They didn’t look for my baby. They didn’t look down for my baby.”
According to a police incident report, investigators were able to locate the owner of the car after the crash. She said she was at work at the time of the crash and her boyfriend had been driving her car on Friday. However, the family does not believe the boyfriend, who is in his 30s, was behind the wheel. Both of the people they saw running from the scene appeared to be teenagers.
Police have not said how the suspected driver may have obtained the car.
“I’m angry. I’m hurt,” Derryl Holmes, the girl’s father, said Monday. “Because for them to just walk away … they know they hit my child.”
LaDerihanna's family set up a GoFundMe page to help the family with medical expenses.
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