Hialeah Police Search For Driver In Deadly Hit & Run
HIALEAH (CBSMiami) – Hialeah police are asking for the public's help in finding the driver of a white Honda Civic involved in a deadly hit and run accident last week which may have been a case of road rage.
The accident happened Friday evening near the intersection of 33rd Avenue and West 9th Street the driver of Mitsubishi, which was heading south, was hit by an Acura, according to police spokesman Eddie Rodriguez. On impact, the drivers of both cars lost control; one hit a home the other ended up in its yard.
Lourdes Perez, 37, who was in the Mitsubishi, was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital where she died. Four other people who were in the cars were airlifted to Palmetto General Hospital in critical condition. No one inside the home was injured.
Perez's niece Grisel Perez was one of the injured. She told CBS4's Peter D'Oench that the accident was caused by the driver of a two door Civic as the result of road rage.
"I think it was idiotic because he could have just kept going. He didn't have to get angry and now my aunt isn't with us," said Perez.
The accident left 17-year old Perez in a brace with a separated collar-bone and two fractured spinal cord discs.
Perez said the driver of the Civic got angry at her boyfriend when he thought he had cut him off. She said the Civic chased them for about 20 blocks and then rammed the Mitsubishi from behind. Perez said her aunt was in the back seat.
"She didn't have a seat belt on and I looked back and I told her to put on her seat belt and she couldn't because it happened so fast," said Perez.
Police said the Mitsubishi was t-boned by the Acura and then slammed into the house. An airbag protected Perez but claimed the life of her aunt who had two children and a grandson.
"She was a really happy person. She always made people laugh and she always made me laugh, she was always there for me," said Perez.
"She was a nice person, everyone here loved her," said Lourdes Perez's brother Lizandro. "I loved her. She was my only sister."
Both Lizandro and Grisel hope police catch the driver or, at least, he turns himself in.
"I think he should have some pity because he should understand, how would he like to have somebody lost from his family," Grisel Perez told D'Oench. "I think he should give himself up."
Witnesses were only able to provide a vague description of the Civic's driver as a white male in his 20s to 30s.
Anyone with information on the Civic's driver or the location of the damaged car is asked to call Hialeah police at (305) 687-2525 or Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at (305) 471-TIPS.
