By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-09-23 18:47:21 | Updated at 2024-09-30 13:36:02
6 days ago
Surveillance video shows the moment a mother of three was run over and fatally-injured by a police car in Texas, as her three children ran out of the way.
The tragedy unfolded Thursday night shortly after the 41 year-old mother - who has not been named - and her children had gotten off a bus around 10 p.m.
She dropped her bus card and had stopped to pick it up when she was struck by the cruiser. Her son and two daughters aged between 18 and 10 were with her at the time.
The deadly crash was caught on camera by a surveillance at a nearby business, showing the three kids standing on the street as their mom kneels down, in video obtained by KHOU.
As the black and white cop car barrels past the bus stop and towards then, the kids are able to scramble out of the road, but not their mom.
'I heard screaming. 'They said, 'Back off! Back off,'' a woman who saw the crash told the local outlet.
Just feet from the bus stop, the mother and her kids were in the road, as the cop car barreled towards them, according to new footage of the crash
Witnesses described seeing the mom appear to drop her bus card, and go back into the road to get it when she was hit by the car, according to the Houston Chronicle.
'We got a loud crowd. They were very upset about what had just occurred and they kinda just all dispersed,' Houston Police Commander Luis Menendez-Sierra told KPRC-TV.
Cops are insisting their officers did nothing wrong.
'The patrol vehicle struck a pedestrian in the roadway, not in a crosswalk,' the Houston Police Department said in a statement.
Two officers riding in a marked patrol car were taking a suspect to the local jail when the car collided with the woman.
'Officers immediately stopped and rendered assistance to the injured female.'
The woman was taken to a local hospital where she died.
None of her children were injured.
Video shows cop cruiser approaching the group of people in the street
Police says the woman may have dropped her bus card and gone back into the street to pick it up when she was hit
'A preliminary investigation indicates that speed is not believed to be a factor in the crash and that the pedestrian failed to yield right of way to a vehicle,' a spokesman for the department said.
The officers have not been identified, but the incident is the subject of an internal affairs investigation, which is standard.
The department is asking anyone who may have witnessed the crash to call 713-308-3600.
