Manassas Journal Messenger | Lawyer: Man in hit and run accident to plead guilty
A man who hit and severely injured a 7-year-old boy in August will plead guilty to felony hit and run, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Fuhard Muhammad Kaloko, 21, of 3806 Delmar Drive in Dale City waived his right to a preliminary hearing in General District Court. Kaloko will plead guilty in Prince William County Circuit Court on Nov. 5, his lawyer said. In exchange, misdemeanor hit and run charge and driving on a suspended license charge were dropped.
Jeremiah Spence-Baker, who was in court, didn’t look like the victim of a calamitous accident barely more than two months ago.
His skin, formerly covered with scabs and red with popped blood vessels, looks healthy. The once swollen, black and blue skin around his eyes is normal. Evidence of his road rash has all but disappeared.
On his way to McDonald’s for lunch, Jeremiah was smiling and in good spirits after the court proceeding.
He said Tuesday he is “sad because the guy hit me.”
Jeremiah was pinned under the car Kaloko was driving Aug. 3 after the 21-year-old jumped a curb on Bremerton Drive in Dale City. When Jeremiah was hit, he was carried by the car until it hit a tree stump.
Lying on the grass with an object piercing his lower intestines, he saw the driver’s feet as Kaloko ran away.
“Why did that guy hit me and leave the car on me?” Jeremiah asked his 29-year-old mother, Meredith Spence, in August.
Witnesses and police say the accident happened because Kaloko hit a parked Chevrolet Impala on Birchdale Avenue. Tom Caprara, a resident on that street who witnessed the accident, followed Kaloko in his truck. He and another man in the neighborhood drove to a home on the end of Bremerton Drive to confront Kaloko. Moments later Caprara returned, but without Jason Smith, who had accompanied the witness.
Welbie Frazier, Smith’s future father-in-law, said the men saw Kaloko speeding down the street when they went back to get Smith. They stopped in the road to block the Kaloko’s Acura from getting by, police said. Cars were coming in the opposite direction, and the Acura swerved around one vehicle at Bremerton’s intersection with Belleville. It was then the car jumped the curb.
Jeremiah was pulled from underneath by witnesses; neighborhood men captured Kaloko in the woods a short time later.
Although Jeremiah is doing better, he still has a long way to go, said his grandmother Barbara Baker.
He will undergo a balloon test at the end of the month to see if his muscles have healed enough for doctors to repair the damaged section of lower intestines. When they do, he will be in the hospital for another week. He is being home-schooled.