Crowd Beats Motorist After He Strikes Boy With Car

[Serena]

Crowd Beats Motorist After He Strikes Boy With Car

POSTED: 10:28 a.m. EDT July 14, 2003

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A crowd in West Palm Beach reacted angrily when a motorist allegedly hit and killed a 3-year-old boy.

Sheriff's officials say a group of men who saw the crash pulled the man from his car and beat him.

The boy darted into traffic Saturday night and was struck by a car driven by 37-year-old Honorio Martinez.


A sheriff's department spokesman says more than a dozen friends of the boy's father saw the crash and stopped the car about a half-block away. The men dragged Martinez out of the driver's seat and punched him several times.


After the beating, Martinez walked back to see how the child was doing, then said he was leaving because he didn't have a driver's license. The men then beat him up again.

Martinez has been charged with felony driving without a license that resulted in a death. No one has been charged in the beating.

 

[Saffron]

Ack. I can understand their anger. I'm not condoning it, I'm just understanding it. It seems as if this was a hit and run until the men caught him. Their emotions were charged. A little innocent child had just been killed and someone was trying to get away with it.

But -- why wasn't anyone charged with the beating, especially the second one!!

 

[Serena]

good question.

 

[Kirby]

Maybe the man has to press charges.