FORT PIERCE – A 34-year-old man was arrested on Aug. 5 following a hit-and-run accident that occurred on Aug. 1 in Fort Pierce where a 7-year-old girl was hospitalized.
Demetrius Nathaniel Johnson was arrested at an apartment at the 2900 block of U.S. 1, Fort Pierce and charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving serious bodily injury and driving while license suspended, a Fort Pierce Police news release stated.
The accident happened at about 8:55 p.m., at the intersection of North 25th Street and Avenue M, Fort Pierce, in which two children were crossing the road in a marked crosswalk when Johnson struck one of the children, according to police reports.
Surveillance video obtained from a nearby business captured the crash and shows Johnson getting out of his car – described by witnesses as an early-2000s gold Mercedes-Benz – to check on the children before returning to his vehicle and fleeing the scene, according to police reports.
The suspect vehicle was identified using available investigative technology and law enforcement databases, which also assisted officers in identifying Johnson as the driver, police said in a press release
The seven-year-old victim has been released from the hospital and is currently recovering, according to police. It is not clear if the other child was struck by the car.
Johnson was in the St. Lucie County Jail on no bond for those charges, according to the jail web site. This investigation remains active.
Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call the Fort Pierce Police Department at 772-462-6800 or Treasure Coast Crime Stoppers at www.tcwatch.org.