BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — A man has been charged in connection with a hit-and-run crash that seriously injured a 12-year-old boy outside Earl Warren Junior High School.
Jeffrey Tracy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to two felony hit-and-run charges and is free on $20,000 bail. He’s due back in court next month.
Police arrested Tracy Nov. 4 after video footage and damage to an SUV linked him to the Oct. 22 crash on Mountain Vista Drive. A school bus driver told police the driver of a Ford Flex left the scene after a boy was hit while crossing the street.
The boy suffered facial fractures, a lacerated liver and a bruise to the right side of his chest consistent with being hit by a driver side mirror, according to a court filing.
The bus driver said the Ford Flex driver, whom he described as a white man about 5 feet 7 inches tall, briefly got out of the SUV but never checked on the boy, police said in a court filing.
At 3 p.m. the next school day, a District Attorney’s office investigator went to the school and took down the license plate numbers of every Ford Flex that arrived.
The investigator noticed a Ford Flex parked about a half-mile from the school as its driver waited to pick up a student, the filing says. The investigator recorded its license plate.
On a subsequent day, the investigator saw the same Ford Flex parked the same distance from the school and followed the vehicle. The investigator noticed it had damage to the driver side mirror.
A records check revealed the vehicle’s registered owner as Katrina Tracy, who is married to Jeffrey Tracy, the filing says. Jeffrey Tracy matched the description of the man who drove the Ford Flex the day of the crash.
Charges were filed against him Nov. 23.
