Illegal Alien Arrested After Striking Victims, Flinging 2 Of Them Off His Hood, Then Taking Off Good Samaritan Tracks Driver Down, Detains Him Until Police Arrive
They were clinging to the top of the hood, screaming for their lives, and police say they were treated like debris. Stunning revelations surfaced Thursday about the driver in the hit-and-run crash that seriously injured four high school students who were heading to the mall.
"Thank God they're alive." That's the first thing Anthony Centamore said when he saw his daughter Stefanie in the hospital on Wednesday night, not yet aware of how she got there.
"When I walked in she had a neck brace on, and blood all over her. Scratches, scrapes on her face," he told CBS 2.
Then came the story of how Stefanie and her three friends were crossing the street and were blindsided by a car, whose driver never bothered to stop even as two victims were laying in the street, and two more, including his own daughter, were on the hood of the car, screaming for their lives.
"What does that say about him? Basically, you can classify him as a low life," Centamore said of the driver, identified as 26-year-old Elias Garcia of Hempstead.
Police said what Garcia did was barbaric, especially in how he successfully got rid of the screaming girls.
"He stops to get them off his car as you would some debris or a pile of snow off the hood of your car," said Nassau County Police Det. Lt. Ray Cote.
"They're screaming, they're bleeding as they're holding on for their lives," said Cote.
Authorities say the day laborer jerked his car to a stop, forcing the two victims to fall off so he could make his getaway. As Garcia took off, leaving the four victims in the street, good Samaritan Steve Loverde sprang into action, determined not to let the driver get away.
"I jumped into my car and made a U-turn and chased him down and he must have been going about 90 miles an hour," Loverde told CBS 2. "I pulled him out of the car and I took his keys away and I just threw them on the grass and made the 911 call."
Loverde stopped Garcia and detained him until police arrived. It turned out Garcia is an illegal alien from Guatemala who doesn't even have a license to drive, which explains why he took off, to a point.
"Regardless of illegal alien or no last name, being a human being and a good person, you stop the car," said Centamore.
As for Centamore's daughter, she's being treated at Winthrop University Hospital and is in good spirits as are all her friends, secure in the knowledge that the man who hit them didn't get away with it thanks to a good Samaritan.
"I can't say enough prayers for that gentleman. It's a great thing that he did," said Centamore.
Loverde hopes to meet the girls at the hospital and tell them someone was watching over them and not everyone gets a second chance at life.
Garcia was charged with reckless endangerment, driving without a license, and leaving the scene. Because he's an illegal immigrant, he could be deported.
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/hit.and.run.2.1706271.html
