A 19-year-old Wilmington man has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault inflicting serious injury after prosecutors say his e-bike slammed into a 5-year-old child at 25 to 30 miles per hour on a Smith Creek Park trail in April 2025, throwing the child 20 to 30 feet and leaving him with broken bones, a severe concussion and facial fractures. Camren Isaiah Creme was sentenced to a 60-day suspended sentence and 18 months of supervised probation, according to court proceedings detailed by Port City Daily.
The crash happened as Creme drove his e-bike on a walking trail off Shenandoah Street, a pathway heavily used by pedestrians and bicyclists where Smith Creek Park prohibits motorized vehicles. The 5-year-old, who was wearing protective gear including a helmet while learning to ride a scooter, suffered a broken femur, five fractures to his face and jaw, and a severe concussion. Port City Daily reported at the time that a family friend who administered CPR at the scene found the boy without a pulse or breathing and turning blue, and that he also suffered a bruised kidney and a seizure. The child was airlifted from New Hanover Regional Medical Center to UNC Medical Center in Chapel Hill for further treatment.
Creme himself broke his foot in multiple places in the collision, but he remained at the scene to help law enforcement's investigation, per the same account. Laboratory tests later revealed THC in his blood. He was initially charged with a felony version of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, and Judge Richard Kern increased his unsecured bond from $10,000 to $20,000 at his first court appearance, Port City Daily reported in April 2025.
Why Prosecutors Settled for a Misdemeanor
By the time the case reached resolution this week, the charge had been reduced to assault inflicting serious injury, a Class A1 misdemeanor that carries up to 150 days in jail and a discretionary fine tied to a defendant's prior record. District Attorney Jason W. Smith said his office and the victim's family agreed to the misdemeanor arrangement specifically to hold Creme accountable without saddling him with a felony conviction. Judge R. Kent Harrell handed down the 60-day suspended sentence and probation term.
As part of the plea, Creme had already completed 334 hours of community service before the deal was finalized and now owes 500 hours total. He must also submit to a substance abuse evaluation and comply with any treatment it recommends, complete an eight-hour Street Safe driver education course for young drivers, and become a presenter on the importance of e-bike safety. “Actions have consequences,” Smith said, calling the plea a teachable moment both for Creme and for other e-bike operators.
A Crash That Helped Push State Lawmakers to Act
The Smith Creek Park collision became a flashpoint in a broader regional reckoning over e-bike safety. Weeks after the crash, State Senator Michael Lee introduced Senate Bill 576 to create a statewide three-class regulatory framework for e-bikes and to explicitly give municipalities the power to regulate them on multi-use paths, according to Port City Daily's coverage of the legislative push. At the time, North Carolina law had no age or speed restrictions for e-bikes on shared paths.
New Hanover County commissioners also held formal discussions on e-bike ordinances that May, with officials acknowledging that enforcing existing bans on motorized vehicles along shared trails remained a persistent challenge for local law enforcement even though county parks already barred them. Around the same period, the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization developed a model e-bike ordinance built on a three-tier classification system meant to help municipalities across New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties standardize their rules, though no member municipality had formally adopted it at the time.
Those efforts culminated this year when North Carolina lawmakers passed House Bill 1094, known as Session Law 2026, establishing statutory Class 1, 2 and 3 e-bike classifications and authorizing cities to regulate e-bikes on municipal streets and paths, according to legislative records published by the University of North Carolina School of Government. Under the new law, taking effect December 1, 2026, Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes are capped at 20 mph while Class 3 pedal-assist models can reach 28 mph.
Part of a Wider Pattern in the Wilmington Area
The Smith Creek Park case arrived amid a string of serious e-bike incidents across the region. In July 2025, a fatal crash involving an e-bike and a passenger vehicle occurred in the 300 block of South Kerr Avenue near Randall Parkway, according to WECT News. In April, a 24-year-old e-bike operator was killed in a crash along Carolina Beach Road, a major commercial corridor, WECT reported separately.
More recently, in July, a Wilmington man faced multiple felony charges after allegedly dragging a Wrightsville Beach police officer 15 feet while resisting arrest during a DWI stop on an electric bike near Wrightsville Beach, according to WECT's reporting. Taken together, the incidents have underscored for local officials why they viewed Creme's case as a critical moment for pushing e-bike safety awareness across coastal North Carolina.
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