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Fear Of Bystanders' Anger Delayed Driver's Reaction

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By VALERIE KALFRIN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 2, 2007

TAMPA - Keith Williams remembered pacing near East Sligh Avenue and North 22nd Street late Friday as bystanders raged about a woman lying in the roadway.

The 39-year-old Lakeland man said he struck the woman, but he was afraid to speak up until the crowd calmed. He waited for what he said was about an hour before telling investigators he was the driver involved.

'I felt like something bad was going to happen,' Williams said Monday. 'I got real nervous. ... I was trying to think: 'What to do, what to do?''

The woman, Loretta McKenzie, 45, was listed in serious condition at St. Joseph's Hospital on Monday, a hospital spokesman said.
Tampa police decided not to charge Williams in the wreck, in part because McKenzie had not used a pedestrian crosswalk, said Cpl. Jared Douds, a department spokesman.

Police also found that, even though Williams did not speak up immediately, he did not leave the scene of the crash and would incur no criminal charge for that, Douds said.

That outraged McKenzie's brother-in-law, Joel Boyd, 51, of Tampa.

'Obviously, there's a flaw in that investigation,' Boyd said. 'This gentleman has to be held accountable ... Someone almost died here.'

According to police, the crash occurred about 11:30 p.m. Friday as McKenzie walked north across Sligh Avenue.

Boyd said McKenzie was walking home from her mother's house at the time. He disputed the police account that she was not in a crosswalk. He said she suffered a head injury.

Williams, who works as a videographer, said he finished filming a church service at a hotel in Channelside that evening and planned to stop at a friend's home on Sligh Avenue before returning to Lakeland.

In an interview Monday, Williams said he had the green light at North 22nd Street and braked and swerved after he 'caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye' of someone stepping into the street. Something hit the windshield of his 1995 Toyota Avalon, he said.

Williams said he stopped and turned around in the parking lot of a nearby convenience store. He stepped out to the sidewalk to call 911 from a cell phone when someone said police were en route.

He called his friend, who met him at the intersection as a crowd gathered, Williams said. The friend tried to soothe him as the woman's relatives arrived, 'walking around furious,' Williams said.

After the crowd thinned, Williams said he approached an officer and identified himself as the driver.

Williams' hesitation is fairly common, Douds said. Some motorists, confronted with an angry driver, will report a wreck from a short distance away.

Investigators look at the driver's 'overall intent' to determine whether the person came forward within a 'reasonable amount of time,' Douds said.

'There might be that initial moment of shock from hitting something or another person,' Douds said. 'Sometimes people call family members and calm down and figure out what to do.'

Williams said he wished he could redo the whole drive. 'I feel sorry for what happened,' he said. 'I tried to think of a hundred thousand ways I could've avoided hitting her.'

Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

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