Dwayne Coly was asleep inside his Normandy home on July 29 when he heard what sounded like an explosion. What he found afterward was a car lodged against the side of his house, his stairwell damaged, and the handicapped chair he depends on knocked out of commission.
Coly, a disabled Marine veteran who has lived in the Jacksonville home for about five years, briefly thought someone had broken in before realizing a vehicle had slammed into his house, according to Action News Jax. “It was shock. I mean, I was flabbergasted; I didn't expect that,” Coly told the outlet. Vivint security-camera footage he provided to the station shows the man who crashed into his home leaving the scene, while an unidentified person can be heard on the recording saying, “Oh my back.”
What began as a property-damage crash turned into a hit-and-run, the station reports, after the driver fled without stopping to exchange information or notify police, as Florida law requires drivers involved in property-damaging collisions to do, according to The Law Offices of Kate Mesic. The crash report lists 22-year-old Gage Remington Carter as the driver, per the report cited by the station's coverage, and states that two other people were also in the car, with the vehicle's owner reportedly sitting in the back seat.
Investigators Still Searching a Month Later
Investigators attempted to locate the suspect, but those efforts turned up negative results, the crash report notes. Carter had not been arrested a full month after the crash, and the station's reporting indicates the other person who left the scene will not face charges under the crash report's findings. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office could not provide additional information about the investigation or any arrests when asked by the outlet.
Investigators had planned to seek an arrest warrant through the State Attorney's Office, per the crash report. In Duval County, that step involves more than a police report: warrant requests from agencies like the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office must first undergo legal review by prosecutors in the State Attorney's Office for the 4th Judicial Circuit before a judge ever signs off, which helps explain the procedural lag between a crash report and an actual arrest.
What the Law Allows — and What It Doesn't
Because no injuries were reported in the crash, Florida law classifies leaving the scene of a property-damage accident as a second-degree misdemeanor under Florida Statute § 316.061, carrying penalties of up to 60 days in jail, a $500 fine, and court-ordered restitution to the property owner. State law only elevates hit-and-run offenses to felonies when bodily injury or death occurs. Fleeing the scene also invalidates the option to simply self-report a property-damage crash online, a step that Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles guidelines say instead triggers a formal police investigation.
Coly's home sits in the Westside's Normandy neighborhood, within Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Patrol District 4, which covers Westside communities extending south toward Normandy Estates, according to Jacksonville Today. The crash there is one entry in a much larger local total: Duval County recorded 1,247 hit-and-run crashes between January 1 and March 21 of this year alone, resulting in 277 injuries and three fatalities, according to preliminary data cited by the Blakeley Law Firm.
A Statewide Pattern of Drivers Who Flee
That local volume mirrors a statewide trend. Hit-and-run incidents account for roughly a quarter of all motor vehicle crashes in Florida, totaling around 100,000 such crashes each year, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. The agency's annual “Stay at the Scene” campaign has identified panic, fear of arrest, lack of insurance or a valid license, and driver impairment as the primary reasons drivers abandon crash sites.
Inside Coly's house, the damage has proven far more disruptive than a dent in drywall. He relies on inclined lifts to get up his staircase, and he has been unable to use them since the crash, according to the station's report. Part of his home has become inaccessible as a result, and he has been paying out of pocket for transportation in the meantime. Repairs inside the home are expected to take months, and Coly will need temporary housing while the work is completed. His car was also damaged in the crash.
Potential Help for a Disabled Veteran
As a disabled veteran, Coly may have access to federal resources beyond the restitution Florida law allows crime victims to seek. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers Home Improvements and Structural Alterations grants, which provide up to $6,800 in lifetime funding for eligible disabled veterans to make medically necessary accessibility modifications, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Those grants are designed to cover modifications needed to facilitate entry to or exit from a primary residence, the kind of access Coly has lost since the crash.
Coly is asking anyone with information about that night to contact the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. For now, he is left waiting, both for repairs to a home that no longer fully works for him and for word on whether the driver named in the crash report will ever face the misdemeanor charge Florida law allows.
