Police Say ‘Older Man’ Owned VW Involved in Hit-and-Run That Injured Tot

Updated at 4 p.m. Thursday

A tip from a county Volkswagen dealership led police investigators Thursday to the 2007 Passat station wagon they think was involved in the possible hit-and-run that left a 2-year-old boy with severe injuries.

Police and a relative of the toddler also said Thursday morning that La Mesa officers have contacted the owner* of the VW involved in the Fletcher Parkway incident.

But police aren’t yet sure who was driving the car that hit the toddler, who had wandered away from his Buckland Street apartment.

In an email response to La Mesa Patch, the relative said the parents know about the La Mesa Police Department impounding the vehicle thought to have been driven in the incident, which was videotaped by a nearby surveillance camera.

“Yes, we know about driver,” said the relative, who didn’t want to be identified. “Apparently it is an older man who states he didn’t know he hit someone. Police are not sure if he will be charged. I can say that [the] baby is doing better, no longer in coma.”

But police Sgt. Peter Andersson said the driver of the 2007 Passat hasn’t been established.

The baby, who hasn’t been identified, is still in the hospital, the relative said. The boy was taken to Rady Children’s Hospital after the accident.

A tip from a San Diego County* Volkswagen dealer led police accident investigator Marc Patrick to pick up the car Thursday morning, Andersson said.

A week after the accident, La Mesa police were able to determine the make and model of the car based on pieces of left-front molding and a turn-signal lens left at the scene—Fletcher Parkway at Trolley Court, Andersson said.

Police contacted local auto repair shops to see if anyone had ordered the pieces, but nothing turned up at first.

But a determined employee at a local dealership kept checking records and contacted La Mesa police a week ago—the Thursday before Oktoberfest.

The employee’s information led investigator Patrick to a body shop that ordered the parts in mid-September—and information on where to find the car in El Cajon.

The VW’s impounding was delayed, Andersson said, because Patrick had several days off after last weekend’s Oktoberfest. But since police knew where the car was, they let Patrick handle it this week.

“Technically, the car is not guilty of anything,” Andersson said. “It’s the driver.”

The white car—with a license plate on the back but not the front—was towed Thursday to a gated evidence bay in the basement of the new police station. The VW was shiny clean in appearance, and the broken parts were replaced.

Andersson also shared new details of the Aug. 25 nighttime accident.

He said the boy was wearing Crocs when he was struck in the eastbound lanes of Fletcher Parkway—and was “shot to the side” rather than run over.

The forward impact forced the boy’s feet out of the sandals, Andersson said.

Hitting a child of 30 or 40 pounds would have been noticeable to the driver, Andersson said.  But police aren’t yet calling the incident a hit-and-run, which implies knowledge that the driver was aware of the injuries.

The investigation can “go in so many different directions,” Andersson said, since several family members might have had access to the car that night. He said police don’t yet know exactly how many people were in the family of the car’s registered owner, who police called “an older man.”

Lt. Dan Willis said police can’t estimate when the investigation will be complete, “but when it is, the [District Attorney’s Office] will review everything and decide whether there was a crime committed and whether or not it is prosecutable.”

He said the dealership that provided the parts is not being named because it “does not want media attention.”

The incident occurred before 8 p.m. as the boy was crossing Fletcher Parkway after wandering away from his apartment home.

The driver never slowed as he left the crash scene, surveillance video showed.

Police said the toddler suffered head and spinal injuries when he was struck in the 8600 block of Fletcher Parkway, near Trolley Court.

Police had appealed to the public to keep an eye out for a white Volkswagen Passat wagon with a luggage rack and possible damage to the left front bumper area and also released a video of the crash, taken by nearby surveillance camera.

The boy’s parents were home at the time of the crash, police said, but the toddler slipped out of the house without their knowledge.

On Sept. 12, the relative told La Mesa Patch that the 2-year-old was in a medically induced coma.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this incorrectly said police knew who drove the VW involved in the accident. Also, police say the owner lives in El Cajon but will not disclose where the dealership is located, contrary to the earlier version.