Ronnie Alcaraz remained in custody at the Dallas County Lew Sterrett Justice Center after an Aug. 11 crash in Dallas’ Pleasant Grove neighborhood that seriously injured 5-year-old Leo Bryant Steward. Alcaraz faces charges of evading arrest causing serious bodily injury, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon involving family violence and interference with an emergency call, according to CBS News. The provided WFAA report contains no usable text to verify the amount; FOX 4 reported that his bond was set at $55,000.
The case began with a disturbance call in the 10300 block of Elam Road. A woman told police that Alcaraz threatened and assaulted her and took her phone as she tried to call 911, according to FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth. Police said he drove away as officers arrived and did not engage in an active pursuit.
Near North Masters Drive, Alcaraz collided with a Chevrolet Equinox and two other vehicles, according to CBS News. Leo, who was riding in the Equinox with his mother, Markietta Bryant, was ejected and seriously injured. Police arrested Alcaraz at the scene. The cited reports do not establish whether a particular roadway condition caused the collision.
The crash occurred on a documented high-injury corridor
The location is part of a broader roadway safety concern identified before the crash. An April 2025 Dallas Department of Transportation and Public Works study places Masters Drive between U.S. 175 and Military Parkway in the city’s High Injury Network. The study reports a fatal and severe crash density of 14.83 for the segment between Bruton Road and Lake June Road, and says the corridor experiences about three times the crash rate of similar facilities statewide.
The same study counted 623 crashes on the Masters Drive corridor from 2018 through 2022 and proposed safety improvements. It did not identify a specific approved construction schedule or dedicated funding source for the portion near Elam Road; implementation was described as subject to funding availability.
What child-crash data can—and cannot—show
For statewide context, the Texas Department of Transportation reported that 78 children younger than 8 died in Texas traffic crashes in 2021, including 22 who were unrestrained. Those figures describe statewide fatalities and do not establish whether restraint use affected Leo’s injuries.
A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration analysis of 1998–2002 data found that, in multi-vehicle fatal crashes, unrestrained children in light trucks and vans were 2.5 to 5.4 times as likely to be fatally injured as restrained children. That older national analysis also does not determine how Leo was restrained or explain the circumstances of this crash.
The available sources document a serious collision, a child’s injuries and the roadway’s broader crash history, but they do not show that the corridor’s design caused this incident. They also do not establish how often Texas crashes involving fleeing drivers occur or how those cases are separately classified from police pursuits in official records.
