ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The suspect in the fatal hit-and-run of a pedestrian in Allentown is behind bars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
District Attorney Jim Martin confirms the arrest of\u00a0Jose Rainer Gonzalez-Roman, 29 of Allentown. Authorities say\u00a0Gonzalez-Roman was taken into custody Wednesday night and was taken to Lehigh County Jail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bail is set at $150,000.<\/p>\n
In March,\u00a0Gonzalez-Roma was\u00a0charged with homicide by vehicle and accidents involving death or personal injury while not properly licensed, both third-degree felonies, according to a news release from the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office.<\/p>\n
He is also charged with accidents involving death or personal injury, a second-degree felony, and faces summary charges of immediate notice of accident to police department, driving while operating privilege is suspended or revoked, reckless driving and duty to give information and render aid.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 15, 2022 at approximately 3:30 a.m., an Allentown Police officer saw a white vehicle traveling at a \u201cvery high rate of speed\u201d in the 1000 block of West Tilghman Street, according to the news release.<\/p>\n
The release continues\u00a0to say the officer tried to catch up to the vehicle to see the license plate and initiate a vehicle stop, the officer came upon an unresponsive and seriously injured man lying in the roadway at North 17th Street and Sumner Avenue, the DA’s office said.<\/p>\n
This victim was later identified as Steve Bernhard.<\/p>\n
Vehicle debris, including a driver\u2019s side mirror, was found near Bernhard. The vehicle that struck the victim did not remain at the scene of the crash.<\/p>\n
Bernhard was taken to an area hospital and later died from his injuries. Bernhard died from multiple blunt force trauma, according to the Lehigh County Coroner\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Surveillance video from the area of the crash showed the suspect vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed as it struck Bernhard.<\/p>\n
An investigation revealed that Gonzalez-Roman was driving the vehicle at the time of the crash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The suspect in the fatal hit-and-run of a pedestrian in Allentown is behind bars.\u00a0 District…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,624,73041,18238,73040,1816,19351,73042],"class_list":["post-161869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-district-attorney","tag-gonzalez-roman","tag-jim-martin","tag-jose-rainer-gonzalez-roman","tag-lehigh-county-district-attorney","tag-lehigh-county-jail","tag-steve-bernhard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}