Police hunting down hit-and-run truck driver

MANILA, Philippines—Manila police are now in hot pursuit of the driver of a truck with plate number RJK-146, after he hit and killed a high-school student running away from other boys he was fighting with early Wednesday.

The speeding truck ran over Kenneth Garcia, 17, at the corner of Dimasalang and Becerra streets in Sta. Cruz, Manila, as the boy was about to cross Dimasalang around 1:30 a.m.

The driver sped off, but witnesses were able to note the truck’s plate number.

The impact propelled Garcia to fall a meter away. Garcia was rushed to the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center, but he succumbed to severe head injuries.

Superintendent Reynaldo Nava, the Manila Police District Traffic Enforcement Unit chief, said autopsy results have yet to reveal if the boy had hit his head on the pavement as he fell, or if the injuries were sustained at the point of impact.

“But for sure, hit-and-run incidents always involve a speeding vehicle. This driver is pitiless. The victim was so young,” he noted in Filipino, in a phone interview. He said Garcia lived in the area.

Witnesses told investigators at the MPDTEU that the speeding truck hit Garcia who was being chased by other boys he was fighting with.