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Father of 2-year-old boy killed by SUV pleads for answers

Posted at 10:52 PM, Jul 07, 2014
and last updated 2014-07-07 23:38:17-04

Newport News, Va. - Just minutes before 2-year-old Angel Vazquez was hit by an SUV outside his Newport News home, his family recorded a home video of Angel playing with his identical twin brother Bryan. Angel died the next day in the hospital.

"It was so, so quick,” says Manuel Vazquez, Angel’s father. “How he got into the street I don't know."

One minute Vazquez says he was inside getting his family ready for church, the next he was outside, his tiny son bleeding on the pavement.

"Right here to here, open,” Vazquez demonstrates the injury to Angel’s head. “The only think I can see right there is the picture in my head. It's the picture in my head that I cannot do nothing."

Police say it was a 41-year-old woman who drove over Angel in a Ford Expedition.

Vazquez's niece, Mayriellies Perez, saw it happen. She says she screamed for the driver to stop.

"I heard when the car hit him and it was hard," she says.

You can still see the markings on the pavement where Angel was hit on Wickham Avenue near 29th street. Nearly a block away, are more markings. That’s where Vazquez says the Expedition finally came to a halt. Now he wants to know why it took the driver so long to stop.

"Even if you hit a little cat you feel that,” Vazquez says. “Even if you hit a rock you feel that. How you don't feel that you hit a boy of 2 years old. Two years and ten months. How don't you feel that? I want to know exactly what's going on."

As police continue their investigation, Vazquez says little Bryan asks about his brother every day.

Angel's tragic death will now save others. Vazquez decided to donate his son's organs.

"That’s why Angel is still alive,” he says. “He lives on in another child."