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Connecticut Hit and Run Pedestrian Accident Sparks Outrage

The only thing more gripping than the lack of help offered to 78-year-old Angel Arce Torres as he lay motionless on a Hartford, Connecticut street after being hit by a speeding car in a pedestrian accident, is the manner in which he was hit. The man had just brought milk at a convenience store across the street, and as a surveillance video released by police shows, began walking back, crossing the street. Two cars, which seem to have been involved in some kind of race judging from their speed and the fact that they were both on the wrong side of the road, encountered the elderly Torres. The first car, the video shows, barely misses Torres, and as he struggled to regain his balance after his narrow escape, the second car hit him, threw him up in the air like a rag doll, and then, without looking back, sped away behind the first car. Both cars turned at an intersection, while Torres who had by now been paralyzed by the impact of his pedestrian accident, lay helplessly in the middle of the street,

What follows in the video has sent shockwaves running through the city of Hartford in particular, and the country in general. Passersby – and there are several of them – who are present at the scene continue to stroll past as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The cars on the street that pass by the scene of the pedestrian accident are no different. One of them slows down, and you can almost sense the driver’s dilemma as he ponders whether to stop and help an old man, or mind his own business and move on. Cold practicality wins, and the car speeds on followed by at least 9 more vehicles. This lack of concern has sent the community into a mood of self-introspection and outrage. The only help that Torres received was when a police cruiser, who was attending to another call, turns up at the scene. Torres was then taken to a hospital where he remains in a critical state.

Police have since then released the surveillance video to point the callousness of bystanders at the scene of the pedestrian accident. The video has rightfully drawn strong condemnation from all quarters of society and a discussion is on about the decaying morals of Hartford’s citizens.

Amidst all this hoopla, let’s not forget that the culprit in this case is the driver who hit Torres, and then sped away without bothering to stop and offer help to his victim. The people walking by and the drivers who sped past the pedestrian accident scene were callous and selfish, no doubt, but they were not responsible for what has happened to Torres. His distraught son says he’s in deep pain, and has been paralyzed. That didn’t happen because of the passersby. It happened because two irresponsible drivers, it seems, got into some sort of race or at the very least were driving recklessly, and one of them managed to mow down a man in the middle of the street.

We hope that the police identify the driver of the car that hit Torres and arrest him. He needs to be held responsible for what he did, and the Torres family needs to be able to give a face to the person responsible for putting their father in this state.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of pedestrian accidents. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

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