FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) -
"Donovan's mother, who'd been jogging ahead of them, heard the impact and immediately turned, saw the vehicle drive away and began to run after that vehicle while yelling at the driver to stop," Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said.
Dyer got choked up as he recounted what Donovan Maldonado's mother must have seen the night 42–year–old Loren LeBeau hit and killed her son.
"He recognized that he hit somebody. And he recognized the severity of what the injuries could be, maybe to have killed somebody," Dyer said.
According to the police report released Tuesday, this wasn't the first time LeBeau drove drunk that day.
He met up with a woman at another friend's apartment.
The two then drove to Bass Lake, where police say, they drank beer all day.
Then LeBeau drove the two back to the Fresno apartment they'd met at earlier.
"The statement from the woman that was in the car with him was that she drove back from Bass Lake and that she felt completely safe driving with him," Jeff Hammerschmidt, LeBeau's attorney, said.
That woman, who police say had been drinking all day too, got in her car and left.
LeBeau did the same.
That's when he crashed into the Maldonado family. And after dragging Donovan the length of nearly three football fields, LeBeau took off and called the friend whose apartment he'd just left.
"What the friend told us, that Loren had screwed up, that he thought he hit somebody and asked his friend what to do. And it was at that time that his friend told him to return to the scene and not make matters worse," Dyer said.
"Obviously Mr. LeBeau knew he'd been drinking and yet made the decision to do the right thing and return to the scene and be honest with police that he was the driver of the vehicle," Hammerschmidt said.
The police report says when LeBeau came back to the scene his eyes were bloodshot and watery. He said things to the officer like: "I did not see anything until I hit it." "Do you know what happened to the kid?" "Never in a million trillion years, am I supposed to be sitting in this seat."
"That is a very unusual crosswalk, in that it's the only one I know of where the pedestrians are supposed to yield to the drivers," Hammerschmidt said.
"The reason this collision occurred is because an individual chose to consume significant amounts of alcohol, got behind the wheel of a car and drove that vehicle," Dyer said.
Fresno police can't say for sure whether or not Donovan would have survived if LeBeau had stopped when he hit him instead of dragging him 300 yards.
But they say his chances of surviving would've been a lot greater.
Fresno police also say there has not been an accident involving a pedestrian or bicyclist at that crosswalk where the Maldonado's were hit in at least five years.
Loren LeBeau is scheduled to be in court this Thursday for his pre-preliminary hearing.
He faces up to 26 years in prison.
