Police say a 20-year-old man is in jail on several charges after he ran a stop sign in Savannah on Wednesday afternoon, hitting and killing a local woman, and then attempting to run from the scene.
Kareem Felder is charged with homicide by vehicle in the first degree, failure to stop at a stop sign, reckless driving and related charges in the wreck that took the life of 69-year-old Bernitha Vaughn.
Not many details have been publicly released about the events leading up to the crash or the exact extent of involvement by local law enforcement.
Savannah-Chatham Police Chief Joseph Lumpkin said Felder was being watched by officers from his department’s undercover drug squad just before the fatal wreck. Lumpkin described the situation as “rolling surveillance” and said the department is trying to determine whether it turned into a pursuit. Investigators were still piecing together details Thursday evening, he said.
Department spokeswoman Eunicia Baker said minutes before the wreck, Felder pulled into a carwash at Victory Drive and Skidaway Road, where he was approached by detectives from the undercover unit. From there, she said, Felder fled.
The wreck itself is being probed by the Georgia State Patrol.
Senior Trooper Chris Cuddington says Felder was heading west on Maupus Avenue in a 2016 Ford Fusion just before 5 p.m. when he blew past a stop sign at Harmon Street and T-boned a 2015 Nissan Versa being driven by Vaughn.
Felder ran from his wrecked vehicle and was apprehended by metro police, Cuddington said. Vaughn died at the scene.
Details about speed have not been released.
While the police department has its own accident investigators, Lumpkin says the state patrol was brought in to allow independent oversight.
“Georgia State Patrol was called in an effort to be transparent in the collision and subsequent death,” Lumpkin said.
The police chief said that no officers had been placed on any sort of administrative leave as of Thursday evening. He declined to say why Felder was under surveillance, but said more details will be released in the coming days.
Cuddington said other charges are pending based on the outcome of an investigation by the state patrol’s Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team.
No further information was immediately available.