Young boy dead after hit by car at Tops

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - A young boy is dead.

Bystanders say a driver struck eight-year-old Richard Alexander Colon twice and then tried to take off.

It happened shortly after noon on Wednesday in front of dozens of shoppers who heard a loud boom, and then watched as the unbelievable happened. News 4 met up with several of the people who made sure the alleged hit-and-run driver was taken into custody.

Timothy Mercedes said, "It was horrible...really horrible."

A tragedy brought Timothy Mercedes and Shawna Edwards together on Wednesday. The Buffalo residents claim they witnessed a motorist back into a little boy as he was exiting the Niagara Street Tops, and then try to flee the scene. They wouldn't let him.

"He was thinking of driving. I stood next to him, pushed him and put the car in park and then I ripped off his seatbelt," said Mercedes.

Edwards added, "He didn't even respond. He seemed like he was hitting anything and everything on the way out."

Dozens of people, young and old, witnessed the horror that unfolded shortly after noon.

A little girl said, "We saw his leg and bones hanging out."

An older man described, "A lot of blood, a lot of blood.'

Medics rushed the eight-year-old boy to the hospital. He died a short time later. Migel Martinez told News 4 via an interpreter that the child was holding his grandfather's hand when, for unknown reasons, the motorist accelerated in reverse, not once, but twice, pushing through a guardrail and pinning the child up against a wall.

Martinez said, "He went to press gas fast and he went once at the little boy. He went back again, and then tried to take off."

Apparently, the suspected driver had been parked in a handicap spot, struck his front end into the yellow bumper, and possibly another car, before ramming in reverse into the child. Mercedes and Edwards held the suspected driver until police arrived.

"It was crazy. It seemed like he had no worries on earth," said Edwards.

Mercedes added, "There was a life. I couldn't let him go."

The driver, who is in his 50's, is in custody. Police have yet to release the name of the child. News 4 is told that his grandfather tried to pull him out of the way of the car, but it was too late. Obviously, it all happened very fast.