A metro Atlanta family is pleading for help after a video went viral showing a car barreling into a 9-year-old girl while she played outside Friday.
LaDerihanna Holmes remains in critical condition with a skull fracture, broken pelvic bone and other internal injuries, her family said.
Police are looking for the driver of the Ford Fusion, which crashed into the home on Cherokee Valley Circle in the Redan area Friday evening, according to a DeKalb County police report.
“You will be caught. The video is everywhere,” Charlette Bolton, the girl’s mother, said at a press conference Monday. “Think about a precious little girl ... Do what’s right.”
In an alarming video caught on the family’s surveillance camera, the sedan is seen plowing through a stop sign and hitting the child outside the home. She can be seen playing with a friend in the yard moments before the crash.
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
While the car stayed lodged in the brick home, the family said the driver and passenger fled the scene.
“They not once looked for my baby,” Bolton said.
Her friend managed to dive out of the way and was not seriously injured, but LaDerihanna was hit when the car crashed through her house. Her father drove her to the hospital.
The owner of the car was at work at the time, according to the police report. She told officers her boyfriend, who is in his 30s, was driving her car Friday.
But the family’s attorney L. Chris Stewart said he does not believe the woman’s boyfriend was responsible for the crash, since the family said the two people in the car were teenagers.
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In the moments after the crash, the family was only thinking about LaDerihanna, so they did not focus on the people in the car.
“They were right there among us,” Bolton said.
In the video, a man who the family said was the passenger immediately runs away after the crash. After several family members come outside to help LaDerihanna, a man in a yellow shirt is seen walking around and rummaging through the car, before running away.
“It was cold. It was very cold,” Bolton said about the video.
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There is no indication as to why the car was speeding so aggressively, Stewart said.
According to the police report, there were tire marks on Cherokee Valley Lane leading into the yard. The home sits on across from a T-intersection with a stop sign.
Stewart has set up a GoFundMe page to help the family with medical expenses. The campaign has a $20,000 goal.
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