BOSTON — Police have released video and photos of the car wanted in connection with a hit-and-run crash that claimed the life of a 4-year-old boy in Boston’s Hyde Park section on Tuesday night.
On Wednesday night, investigators shared a video that showed a dark gray subcompact hatchback traveling on Wood Avenue in the direction of Cummins Highway. Police say the video was taken before the deadly crash.
Officers responding to a report of a child struck by a vehicle in the area of 165 Wood Avenue around 9:30 p.m. found a child with serious injuries, according to the Boston Police Department.
The victim, identified by family as Ivan Pierre, was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police noted that an off-duty Boston firefighter rendered first aid to the child at the scene.
Pierre’s uncle called his nephew the “life of the house”.
A family member says the boy slipped out of the house, unnoticed.
“My sister got a new car,” said the child’s uncle, Heroldy Limage. “She had just gotten home and everyone was rushing out to see her new car.’
Limage said that as the adults gathered by the doorway, Ivan snuck out to see the owner of that new car — his mother.
A witness said that Pierre and his mother were walking across the street when a speeding car approached them, struck the boy, and continued on without stopping.
“Next thing, there was an impact that everyone heard outside, and it was him lying there in the street,” Limage said. “Imagine a grown-up getting hit by a car. Now put a four-year-old kid in that position.”
Rakeem Kelley witnessed the incident. He had just pulled up to visit relatives on Wood Avenue.
“I just heard this loud like bang. It sounded like a car accident — two cars hitting each other,” Kelley said. “And I like jumped and when I looked up that’s when I saw the baby getting run over.”
Kelley said the vehicle was black or another dark color and was definitely not an SUV. He said the driver actually accelerated after hitting the child.
“The vehicle, we didn’t even get a chance to see it,” he said. “It looked like a blur. All I saw was the headlights and the back brake lights. I didn’t get a chance to see the license plate.”
Moments after the child was hit, Kelley, the father of two young boys, jumped out of his car to help.
“I ran over to him, trying to ask him if he’s alright,” Kelley said. “Telling him to stay with us. And I could see the baby’s not going to make it.”
Limage had a message for the driver of the vehicle that hit his nephew.
“Just turn yourself in,” he said. “The least you could have done is just stop and check on the kid. That was too much for you to do? Now we’re short one family member. I don’t know if he knows what that feels like but I want to tell him, he doesn’t want to know what that feels like.”
Anyone with video surveillance in the area of Wood Avenue or anyone who may have witnessed the crash is asked to call Boston homicide detectives at 617-343-4470.
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