A Fort Worth mother didn’t wait for police to investigate a hit and run accident that left her young son seriously injured.
Amiee Johnson took matters into her own hands, investigated the case and led the police to the possible suspect’s home.
Johnson and her supporters protested with signs near his home on Monday afternoon calling for those responsible to be arrested and charged.
They also express their anger at the police’s handling of the case.
Fort Worth Police announced Monday evening that an arrest had been made in the case, but said no further information would be released because the suspect was a youth.
#Update – An arrest has been made in this case. Since the arrested person is a young person, we cannot provide any identification information. Thank you to everyone who helped with this case and especially to the victim’s family! https://t.co/RSxsWXIZ6T
– Fort Worth Police Department (@fortworthpd) July 13, 2021
The hit-and-run happened Saturday night on the 3200 block of Strong Avenue in southeast Fort Worth.
Johnson said her son Josiah Dunn, who had just turned 8, was riding a bike in their neighborhood when a truck crossed the boy who was speeding down Strong Avenue.
Johnson explored the area and found that the incident was taped on her neighbor’s surveillance camera.
The video, made available to NBC 5, shows a child on a bicycle crossing Strong Avenue and then hit by a silver pickup truck that doesn’t stop and provide assistance.
Johnson was inside when her older son came in to say that someone hit ‘Jo Jo’ and didn’t stop.
“I ask him what’s going on and he was just like that, he was just so limp,” Johnson said of the injured child. “We picked him up, he starts screaming and says: I can’t feel my legs! I can’t feel my legs, mom! ‘”
Josiah was hospitalized with multiple injuries, including a broken leg, a fractured skull and a swelling of his brain.
“Jojo is perfect,” said Johnson. “Jo Jo is strong and Jo Jo is a fighter and he has no choice but to be a fighter because a fighter raised him.”
Johnson said that while police said they would investigate the case, she never contacted her neighbor to get a surveillance video.
So she did it herself.
Johnson said it found a video from a neighbor and a nearby store showing the incident and the suspect’s license plate.
Her family, she said, was able to track down the registered owner of the truck at a nearby home.
She claims they saw the silver truck behind a high fence on the property and called the police.
The truck was towed away on Sunday but no one was arrested.
Johnson expressed frustration at the lack of urgency she believes the police have demonstrated.
“I am a civilian. How can I get your job done in six hours? You could have done that in an hour. My neighbors stay next door. The store is across the street. Everything I have you could have gotten faster than me, ”Johnson said of the police. “Why did I have to do your job for you? What more did I have to worry about? If it were your child, what would you do? “
Johnson gathered friends, family and community activists at the suspect’s home on Monday.
The group held signs demanding justice for the little boy.
When asked what she would reply to critics asking why she is protesting and not being by her son’s side for the police to do their job, Johnson replied:
“My mother and his grandmother have him. I can’t fight for him in there [hospital]. I have to fight for him out here. “
A handful of uniformed Fort Worth police officers and a detective showed up at the family’s protest Monday afternoon and spoke extensively with Johnson, promising her that the case would be charged.
“When you get here, you want me to calm down,” Johnson said of the police. “I can’t calm down because I did your job. I can’t calm down. But what I’m going to do is stay here until I get what I want: and that’s justice. I want them to be held accountable. “
The suspect, the police later said in a statement, was a minor and was arrested on Monday evening.
Due to his age, the department will not provide any further information.
A woman who said she was the suspect’s mother contacted NBC 5 over the weekend complaining about the protest outside her home.
The woman says her 15-year-old son took the family’s truck without permission and did not stop after beating the child.
Anyone with information or video of the incident is urged to call Detective Lockhard at 817-392-4886. Tipsters can also remain anonymous by contacting Tarrant County Crime Stoppers at 817-469-TIPS.
Report number: 210053976
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