Authorities say Monday that a girl’s school basketball coach in Connecticut is being charged with vehicular assault after video showed him hitting someone and driving off after a fight about a weekend game.
Connecticut State Police said in a news statement that the hit happened Saturday at Horace W. Porter School, which is east of Hartford. The victim was thrown over the hood of the car.
State police say the teacher, Bryan Baez-Rivera, 29, is also charged with disturbing the peace, putting a child in danger, and reckless endangerment.
It was impossible to get in touch with Baez-Rivera on Monday. The youth basketball team he seems to be connected with did not reply right away to a request for comment.
Mark Walter, who runs the town of Columbia where the game took place, said, “This is not something we encourage or expect.” NBC Connecticut said he said, “We want our kids to have fun, feel safe, and enjoy sports.”
That same day, Horace W. Porter School said in a statement that school staff are ready to help kids deal with what happened.
The event happened at a Parks & Recreation basketball game, the school said. A summary of the criminal information that the police shared says that the argument was “about” the game.
The person who was supposedly the victim told police that they tried to talk to the coach of the other team in the parking lot after the game, but the coach hit them “on purpose.” The person, who was not named, was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, the report said.
The person who Baez-Rivera hit then chased him and walked in front of his car, according to the report. He then called the police. The report says Baez-Rivera said he couldn’t stop in time.
“Baez-Rivera reported that multiple people then began to chase after his vehicle, and he left the property out of concern for his own safety as well as his passengers, which included minor children,” the release states.
Someone was seen running after Baez-Rivera’s car in a snowy school parking lot on security video that was made public by the police.
According to the film, the person walks into the street and stands in front of the sedan for about three seconds before the crash. The person turns the hood over and falls to the ground before getting back up.
The video shows that the driver doesn’t seem to hit the brakes and keeps going.
According to the news report, he didn’t seem to try to avoid hitting the person.
The release says that Baez-Rivera was arrested without any problems and then freed on a $5,000 bond.
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