Hit-Run Driver Kills Boy, 4, in Hollywood

Eusevio Alvarez had one simple heart-wrenching question Saturday: Who could run down his 4-year-old nephew and flee the scene without stopping, killing the child after dragging him under a car more than 250 feet?

There were no easy answers as police looked for the hit-and-run motorist who killed Ricky Ramirez after he stepped off the curb Friday evening along a busy Hollywood street.

Family members gathered at the house of the child’s grandmother Saturday afternoon to offer their condolences to his parents. At the porch of the Los Angeles home, fathers gripped their sons in their arms as if trying to protect them from the grim circumstances of the accident.

Police said the boy and his parents had visited his godmother and were leaving her apartment building in the 600 block of North Kingsley Drive about 6:40 p.m. when Ricky darted into the street in front of the adults.

As the boy’s mother and others looked on in horror, a man in a late-model Buick struck the child while traveling north at high speed.

After hesitating momentarily, the driver sped up again, dragging Ricky under the front right tire of the car.

The motorist drove about a block north on Kingsley and then turned east onto Melrose Avenue, still dragging the dying boy, who witnesses said made no sounds. The child was thrown along the curb as the motorist roared off and disappeared.

Neighbors performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the boy, but witnesses said Ricky had already suffered fatal head injuries and internal bleeding.

“When we got to him, he was like a rag doll,” said Mike Perez, son of Ricky’s godmother. “He was all twisted up. Poor little guy. He never knew what hit him.”

Ricky died late Friday at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

Police and witnesses describe the driver as a Latino between 35 and 45 with curly black hair and a bushy mustache.

Neighbors said the man’s vehicle was a light blue Buick four-door with a white vinyl top in poor condition. The car had a 3-inch-wide rainbow decal running along the top portion of the rear window.

Witnesses said that the vehicle frequently visits the Kingsley Drive area and that its driver may live in the neighborhood or know someone who does.

Friends described Ricky as “a happy-go-lucky little boy who liked to get into mischief.” They complained that motorists often drive too fast along narrow Kingsley, which is in a working-class neighborhood where children often play in the street.

Alvarez, the boy’s uncle, shook his head as he stood outside the house where the family gathered to grieve.

“Why didn’t the guy stop,” he asked, his voice breaking. “If he had only stopped the first time, Ricky wouldn’t be dead right now. He’d have maybe only a broken leg.

“But he drove off, knowing he had an innocent baby boy under his car. I just don’t understand it.”

Anyone with information about the accident is asked to call the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Traffic Division at (310) 202-4545.