The man who turned himself in to the Kearny Police Department last week as the driver responsible for a Nov. 30 hit-and-run involving a Franklin School student on Bergen Avenue, Kearny, has been identified as David D. Simoes, 38, of Newark.
Kearny police Capt. Timothy Wagner says Simoes was charged Dec. 3, with the fourth-degree crime of being involved in an accident resulting in serious bodily injury while driving with a suspended license (N.J.S.A. 2C:40-22b) and the traffic charge of driving with a suspended license (N.J.S.A. 39:3-40e).
Simoes was released on summonses after he was booked — without bail — pending a Central Judicial Processing court appearance Dec. 17 at the Hudson County Courthouse in Jersey City.
Wagner says: “Additional charges are pending since the accident is still under investigation.”
Here’s a description, proffered by Wagner, of how the hit-and-run occurred:
On Nov. 30, at approximately 8:05 a.m., Officer Richard Poplask Jr. responded to the intersection of Bergen and Davis avenues on a report of a 9-year-old boy — a student at Franklin School — struck by a car. Poplaski’s investigation revealed the boy had been struck while he was in a crosswalk, hit the hood of the car and fell to the ground.
Simoes then reportedly fled the scene, according to Wagner.
The boy was treated and later released from University Hospital Trauma Center, Newark.
Video stills of the striking vehicle recovered from nearby surveillance cameras were widely disseminated by the police department via social and traditional media. On Dec. 2, KPD Officers Chris Manolis and Jordenson Jean separately told Poplaski they recognized the striking vehicle as belonging to a Windsor Street resident.
The vehicle was located a few hours later near the owner’s place of employment in North Arlington.
Late Dec. 3, Simoes, a friend of the car’s owner, turned himself in at KPD Headquarters on Laurel Avenue as the driver responsible for the hit-and-run incident.
Meanwhile, a witness tells The Observer she was mortified by what she saw that day while she was driving in the area.
“The boy was not moving — and he was lying in the street near the curb,” she said. “At first, I was worried about the boy being motionless, but that was probably because other adults on the scene told him not to move in case there were spinal or head injuries. I was so relieved when he first moved. I can’t get out of my head what I saw, but I am so happy he’s OK. The results here could have been catastrophic, but they weren’t, thank God.”
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, a place where he has served on and off since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on Facebook Live, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to West Hudson to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.