{"id":417505,"date":"2026-10-03T06:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T06:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/417505\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T06:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T06:04:08","slug":"family-friends-honor-10-year-old-killed-in-northwest-miami-dade-hit-and-run-with-brother-home-from-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/417505\/","title":{"rendered":"Family, friends honor 10-year-old killed in northwest Miami-Dade hit-and-run with brother home from hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Family and friends gathered at Gwen Cherry Park for a final tribute to honor 10-year-old Payton Williams, a cheerleader who was killed in a hit-and-run crash<\/a>\u00a0in northwest Miami-Dade earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Miami-Dade deputies said Williams and her 15-year-old brother, Brent, were riding an e-bike<\/a>\u00a0when they were struck by a Nissan Versa between Northwest 117th Street and 7th Avenue. The driver fled the scene without stopping to render aid. Brent was badly injured in the crash<\/a>\u00a0but is now recovering at home.<\/p>\n

The suspect<\/a>, Arick Metayer, turned himself in on Monday, nearly three weeks after the crash. He remains behind bars after his bond was set at $165,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Why run for so long? These were two innocent kids,” said Williams’ cousin, Chasity Smith. “We got justice, so it’s like the beginning of a start for us.”<\/p>\n

Smith expressed gratitude for the community members who showed up to support the family. “To know that we have a lot of people behind us. Payton would have been happy about all this,” Smith said.<\/p>\n

Mourners wearing custom T-shirts gathered around Williams’ custom casket during the memorial.<\/p>\n

Williams’ cousin Javon Wiggins reflected on the tragic loss. “Just numb. It’s a numb situation cause it’s unbelievable,” Wiggins said. “Just kids. 15 and 10 years old. It’s kids, man. It’s kids. Even if it was an adult, you need to stop.”<\/p>\n

The celebration of life for Williams will continue Saturday with a block party, followed by funeral services at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Family and friends gathered at Gwen Cherry Park for a final tribute to honor 10-year-old Payton Williams, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7071,1171,2337,5154,123,125,124,1064,9993],"class_list":["post-417505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-children","tag-e-bikes","tag-fatal-crash","tag-hit-and-run","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-miami-dade","tag-northwest-miami-dade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}