By Mike Morris
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
10:35 a.m. Wednesday, September 15, 2010A 17-year-old driver surrendered to Atlanta police early Wednesday to face charges that she chased a group of children who had yelled at her to slow down, then later returned to the scene and ran over a 15-year-old boy during an apparent fit of road rage.
The 15-year-old was critically injured in the incident, which happened about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday on Grand Avenue in southwest Atlanta.
Atlanta police spokesman Otis Redmond told the AJC that about 6 p.m., an argument erupted between Lynette Walls, 17, and several children playing in the street when one “shouted for her to slow down in the neighborhood.”
“At some point, she chased one or more of the children with her vehicle through the front yard of a home in the 2700 block of Grand Avenue,” Redmond said, adding that a fight then broke out between residents of a nearby home and Walls and one of her passengers.
“Approximately two hours after that initial fight, Ms. Walls’ vehicle was spotted on Grand Avenue in the same area,” Redmond said.
A 15-year-old boy was standing in the street “when witnesses say the driver of the vehicle accelerated toward him,” Redmond said. The driver struck the boy, then fled the scene.
The boy was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in critical condition with head injuries and multiple facial fractures, Redmond said.
Channel 2 Action News identified the injured boy as Christopher Elliott.
Elliott’s brother, Jarvis Cooper, told the station that “a car came out of nowhere, speeding toward us [and] he screamed to move out of the way. I jumped out of the way and as I looked back, I couldn’t see him. And I looked on the side of the street and I [saw] him on the side of the street, blood was coming from his head.”
Walls, who has a Decatur address, turned herself in at the Zone 3 precinct shortly before 2 a.m. Wednesday and was charged with aggravated assault and aggravated battery. The vehicle was recovered in DeKalb County.
