A 49-year-old Lincoln man is behind bars after detectives say automated license plate cameras helped them track him down following a hit-and-run that left a child hospitalized with significant injuries. Robert Mullen was arrested Thursday morning and booked into South Placer Jail on one felony count of hit and run resulting in death or injury, according to Lincoln Police Capt. Zach Eaton.
The crash happened on August 26 at Joiner Park in Lincoln, where two juveniles were riding an e-scooter when a vehicle struck them, according to Eaton, as reported by the Sacramento Bee. One of the children suffered significant injuries and was hospitalized after the crash. Investigators initially had limited evidence to work with, but video from the scene provided a general description of the vehicle involved.
Cameras Point Detectives Toward a License Plate
That partial description eventually led investigators to a license plate connected to Mullen, the Bee's reporting shows. Eaton said Flock cameras helped detectives identify the license plate linked to the vehicle, giving them the break they needed after the crash left few other leads. Detectives determined Mullen had fled to Southern California after the crash, according to Eaton, prompting Lincoln detectives to travel there themselves to continue the investigation.
Once detectives caught up with the vehicle, they seized it, according to Eaton, and recovered additional evidence pointing to Mullen's involvement in the crash. Lincoln detectives investigated the case as a hit-and-run that seriously injured a child riding an e-scooter, piecing together what began as a thin trail of evidence into an arrest. Eaton credited the detectives and dispatchers with piecing together the case, saying he was proud of the detectives and dispatchers who secured valuable evidence and provided justice to an injured victim.
The Legal Exposure Mullen Now Faces
Under California Vehicle Code Section 20001, any driver involved in a collision resulting in injury or death must immediately stop at the scene, provide contact and registration details, and render reasonable assistance to the injured party, according to FindLaw. That duty applies regardless of who was at fault in the initial collision — legal analyses of the statute emphasize that criminal hit-and-run charges focus entirely on the act of fleeing rather than on who caused the crash, according to the Goldstein Law Group.
A felony conviction under Section 20001 can carry up to one year in county jail or two to four years in state prison, along with fines between $1,000 and $10,000, per FindLaw's breakdown of the statute. Mullen is being held on $25,000 bail, an amount consistent with the presumptive bail set for hit-and-run causing personal injury under the 2026 Placer Countywide Schedule of Bail for Bailable Felony Offenses. Jail logs did not say when Mullen would face arraignment.
How Long a Felony Case Typically Takes in Placer County
Placer County's own system assessment found that felony cases in the county average 28 days from booking to the District Attorney's formal filing decision, and another 129 days from filing to a preliminary hearing. That timeline offers a rough guide to what may lie ahead in Mullen's case, though the exact court schedule remains unknown for now.
This isn't the first time Flock camera footage has cracked open a Placer County hit-and-run case with little else to go on. Back in August 2024, similar technology and coordination between Lincoln police and the Placer County Sheriff's Office helped investigators track down a driver who left a bicyclist severely injured on Industrial Avenue.
Camera Vandalism Reflects Ongoing Local Friction
The reliance on Flock's automated license plate readers comes as the technology remains a point of local tension in Lincoln. Two Flock cameras near the Lincoln Airport were damaged in August, marking the fifth and sixth instances of Flock camera vandalism recorded in the city in 2026, according to KXTV-TV. Lincoln police have maintained that the cameras remain vital to solving crimes even as vandalism incidents and privacy debates continue.
Those debates have played out beyond Lincoln as well. Flock Safety instituted mandatory system-wide changes in August requiring officers to enter a valid criminal case number for every search, a shift that followed national scrutiny over database misuse and that also saw the vendor reduce its default data retention recommendation to seven days, Hoodline previously reported on Flock audits. For Lincoln investigators, though, the technology once again provided the key thread connecting a fleeing vehicle to a suspect hundreds of miles away.
