An Ohio driver was shot and killed on March 24 after he hit a 4-year-old boy in a residential area.
Police said that the boy walked into the street in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati around noon that day, when 44-year-old Jamie Urton struck him, reports WCPO. According to the boy’s father, Jamal Killings, the boy was released from the hospital the following day with bleeding in his brain.
“The car came from the bottom of my street, going about 45 miles per hour,” Killings told WCPO. “I initially stopped the car, you know a lot of kids play on that street — that’s residential, 15-25. I initially stopped him. He slowed down a bit and then swerved around me, hitting my other son. My son wasn’t hit in the middle of the street. He was hit on the curb.”
At that point, an altercation between Urton and witnesses broke out, although Killings said that he didn’t even realize the driver had been shot.
“My job as a father was to get my son face first off the concrete and take him to see medical attention, and that’s what I did,” Killings explained.
According to WLWT, police said that the onlookers rushed out into the street and assaulted Urton and a passenger, either by dragging them out of the car or attacking them after they exited. The passenger sustained minor injuries, while Urton was shot multiple times and died at the hospital.
“We’re out here again, something awful has happened, but we’re not going to stop,” said Dorron Hunter,
a community-outreach advocate for the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission, according to WLWT. “We’re going to tell them to stop the shooting, stop the killing, stop the violence.”
Neighbors have said that shootings and gunfire have become increasingly common in the neighborhood. College freshman Supreme Davis called on her community to put a stop to it, reports WCPO.
“Walnut Hills is a sacred community for everybody,” Davis told WCPO. “A lot of our upcoming talent and kids that have a bright future come out of this same very neighborhood.”
Police have not made any arrests, and officials said they did not know whether the driver was shot because he struck the child or for other reasons.
Killings directly addressed Urton’s family in calling the whole situation tragic: “I apologize for your loss. I don’t condone violence. I don’t teach my kids violence. That should never have happened … an unfortunate situation, unfortunate event, but I hope we all can learn from this.”
