(StraightNews.org) – Police in Texas are investigating a child’s death after an Uber driver ran her over after dropping off the toddler’s family. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the driver brought a family to their home in the Bayou Apartments in Waverly Drive, Houston, where surveillance video shows two adults exiting the vehicle and a young child suddenly appearing at the front. The video suggests that the driver did not see the little girl and drove forward, trapping her under his car.
The family then launched at the driver, dragged him from the vehicle, and assaulted him. The 1-year-old girl was rushed to HCA-Kingwood Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead. Driver Mohammed Khan went to Houston Northwest Hospital with minor injuries, and local media reports that he cooperated with the police investigation and was physically unimpaired.
Uber released a statement about the incident, saying it removed the driver’s platform access as it investigated. The Harris County Sheriff said that no charges were filed against the driver or the family, but this is still under active investigation, so that may change at a later date.
The vehicle involved in the incident was a Volkswagen Atlas, which has a high front, and reports suggest this obscured the driver’s visibility. A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s office said the infant became lodged under the front left wheel. The baby’s family took her to a local gas station and contacted emergency services, who performed life-saving measures before transporting the girl to hospital.
Neighbor Simya Washington, who supplied a video recording to investigators, said she saw the little girl playing outside every day and thought about her own child when she witnessed the tragedy on film.
Car accidents are the second leading cause of childhood fatalities in America and the number one cause of unintentional serious injury. The most common reason is failing to secure children correctly in vehicles, and Native American children die at higher rates than any other group.
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