Officer Caught On Video Crashing Into 8-Year-Old Riding Dirt Bike
An 8-year-old in Florida was seriously injured after a Sarasota police officer crashed into him with his patrol car on Monday, in an incident captured on body camera footage.
Gerard Butler, 8, had just received the minibike as an early birthday present the weekend before the crash. He began riding it home after feeling scared by police activity in his neighborhood, his mother, Regina Sanders, told CBS affiliate WTSP.
An officer in a patrol vehicle leaving the scene of a different call struck the boy a at around 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 28, Sarasota Police Chief Rex Troche said in a press conference. The police department also shared the graphic body camera footage online.
In one video, the unnamed officer can be seen turning left at an intersection, passing a stop sign without appearing to make a complete stop before accelerating and hitting the child. The officer then gets out of his patrol car, and Butler can be seen lying on the ground a great distance from the vehicle.
"The cops, you just see them flying, at least hitting 60 miles, and they don't care about the stop signs, just flying through the roads," Sanders told WTSP. "I was inside and I just heard something scraping and then you just see the little minibike on there."
In the video, the officer calls for backup and emergency medical aid as a crowd of panicked neighbors forms. Police make some attempts at CPR in the interim, but cannot find a defibrillator.
The child was taken to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital and was treated for serious injuries, according to an earlier release by police. Sanders told WTSP earlier this week that her son had undergone two brain surgeries and a knee surgery and is scheduled for jaw surgery.
In a Wednesday update from ABC affiliate WWSB, Sanders said her son has only been able to move his legs slightly and cough since he was admitted to the hospital.
"I've never been through anything like this before," Sanders said.
