A man faces charges for leaving the scene of a crash where he hit and killed a 17-year-old Gary girl on an electric scooter on 5th Avenue Saturday.
Akil Khalfani Ward, 41, of Gary, was charged Monday with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death or catastrophic injury, a Level 4 felony. He faces 2-12 years in prison if he’s convicted.
He posted a $3,500 cash surety bond Tuesday. A court date is not yet set.
Gary Police responded at 5:51 a.m. on Jan. 4 to W. 5th Avenue and Madison Street – a half-mile east of the police station. There were “large amounts of debris” scattered on 5th Avenue.
Eunikue L. Roberson, 17, of the 1600 block of 11th Avenue, was unresponsive, lying with massive injuries on the north side of 5th Avenue near the curb. Her electric scooter was nearby.
“Someone hit her and left,” a witness said.
The Gary Fire Department advised the girl was dead, Gary Police spokesman Cmdr. Jack Hamady said previously, and the Lake County Coroner’s Office, as well as the Gary Police Crime Scene Unit and Gary Police Hit and Run Investigators, were notified. Witnesses at the scene said the vehicle involved in the crash had left the scene before they got there, so investigators from Hit and Run as well as the Real Time Crime Center and Investigations began working on-scene, he said.
Cops found parts of a 2014 grey Dodge Durango in the debris – a headlight, grey bumper, front grill with a specific assembly part number.
They also tracked a fluid trail from the crash scene from 5th Avenue to south on Adams Street, west on 8th Avenue, south on Grant Street and west near the 11th Avenue and Taft Street intersection before it disintegrated.
Using Gary Police’s Real Time Crime Center, investigators pulled video footage from across 5th Avenue from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. License plate readers showed the truck was registered to Ward.
Before the crash, both of Ward’s headlights were on. Afterward, security video from an 11th Avenue funeral home showed one headlight was out. Additional footage showed Roberson cut through the 5th Avenue McDonald’s parking lot just before the crash.
After observing leaked fluids in Ward’s driveway, police executed a search warrant at 4:45 p.m. on Jan. 4.
They seized six iPhones and found the Durango in the garage with its ‘Sheriff supporter’ license plate with “heavy front-end damage.”
Ward told cops he was driving to work at the TA truck stop on Ripley Street in Lake Station when he “thought he hit a deer” on 5th Avenue.
He said he drove a few blocks before he got out of the truck, then looked at his damage and went home. Gary Police Cpl. Eric Green wrote that Ward’s texts contradicted that he didn’t know what he hit.
“So, you seen the police found 3 bodies on 5th Ave. dead this morning by outside of the (Knights of Columbus) building,” a woman texted him at 8:55 a.m.
“2 or 3 (shake my head),” Ward responded in subsequent messages.
“Yea,” she responds.
“My stomach hurt,” he replies.
The conversation turned to repairing the truck.
On a text thread with a man, Ward asks if he “wanna buy (the) Durango back” because he “hit a deer this morning.”
The men talk pricing, or whether he should trade it in for another vehicle.
“Imma need hood, bumper and driver’s fender. Headlight,” Ward texted.
Police later discovered Ward googled a 10-50, an officer code used for accidents, and later couldn’t clarify why. He also looked on eBay for a replacement headlight.
mcolias@post-trib.com
Freelance reporter Michelle L. Quinn contributed.
