A child was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after being struck by a vehicle fleeing San Antonio police near the Igo Branch Library on the city's Northwest Side Friday night. Police said the driver sped off during an attempted traffic stop and remained at large as of Friday night, with the search for the vehicle and the person behind the wheel still underway.
According to KSAT, officers tried to pull over a blue SUV around 8:15 p.m. Friday near the library in the 13300 block of Kyle Seale Parkway. The station reported that during the pursuit, the driver struck a 10-year-old child in the parking lot, while News 4 San Antonio reported the child was 9 years old, citing the same traffic-stop timeline and location. Both outlets agree the collision happened amid the chaos of a traffic stop gone wrong, though they differ on the child's exact age.
Per the same News 4 San Antonio report, officers did not chase the vehicle after the driver fled, and police identified the driver as an 18-year-old male who allegedly tore through a nearby park area at a high rate of speed before the child was hit. The outlet's account states the child suffered abrasions after being knocked down but did not sustain life-threatening injuries, and was taken to a hospital for assessment.
Conflicting Details on the Vehicle and the Search
Descriptions of the vehicle involved also diverge between accounts. KSAT reported officers were initially trying to stop a blue SUV, while the same News 4 San Antonio article later described the vehicle police were searching for as an older SUV. As of Friday night, police were still searching for the driver, the station noted, and neither report had announced an arrest.
Separately, KENS 5 reported that San Antonio police officers had attempted to stop a blue Ford, and that the driver turned into a parking lot before fleeing to a second nearby lot, where the vehicle struck the child as the child was crossing the street, according to police cited by the station. KENS 5 also reported that officers provided aid to the child, who was taken to a local hospital with injuries not considered life-threatening, and that the driver fled without stopping to help. The station added that officers later found the vehicle abandoned, and that police said the 18-year-old driver will face a charge of collision involving injury when located. KENS 5 reported the investigation remains ongoing.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Pedestrian Danger
The incident lands amid ongoing city efforts to curb pedestrian injuries and fatalities on San Antonio streets. The city's Transportation Department launched a High-Injury Network Dashboard in December, built with Texas Department of Transportation crash data from 2018 through 2022, according to KSAT's earlier reporting. That dashboard is a feature of the city's broader $1.2 million Keep Crossing Safe campaign, the outlet reported.
San Antonio established its Vision Zero program back in 2015 and followed up with a Vision Zero Action Plan in 2024, KSAT reported, with five related safety projects completed by last December and five more under construction at the time. The city has also promoted a public safety campaign aimed at preventing traffic-related pedestrian fatalities, according to a release from the City of San Antonio.
This is not the city's only recent case of a fleeing driver striking a pedestrian. In August, a San Antonio man was hospitalized after police said a driver veered onto a sidewalk, hit him and fled the scene near downtown, as reported by News 4 San Antonio. Friday's incident near Igo Branch Library remains under investigation, and no arrest had been announced as police continued searching for the driver.
