City police are trying to find a hit-and-run driver and, because of the nature of the witnesses, there isn't exactly conclusive evidence to go on:
Witnesses, mainly children at the scene, described the car with a wide range of colors, changing from white to silver to maroon. At first they described it as a 1990s make, but Joyner said that is now in question. Some thought a man was driving the car. Now police are backing off that assertion.
We shouldn't be too hard on the kids -- most of us would have trouble identifying a person or a car we've seen only once, briefly, under stressful circumstances. Most people whose ideas of the criminal justice system come from TV shows and movies think that a circumstantial case is a weak one, made good only by eyewitness testimony. In fact, circumstantial evidence is often quite strong, and eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, in some studies by as much as 50 percent. I don't know how many innocent people are behind bars because of faulty eyewitness accounts as opposed to faulty circumstantial evidence, but I'd bet the numbers are comparable.
Comments
Who can blame the kids they way most cars look like...well, most OTHER cars these days. Back in the 50s and 60s, our generation at least had auto design in our favor.
At least when I was their age, I COULD tell differences in COLORS.
But I would wager that if it were a "day-glo" tangerine Escalade with spinners and a loud stereo that looked like it just drove off of the show Unique Whips...they could ID that straight away.
;)
B.G.
One of the weird aspects to this is that the little victim apparently chased a ball into the street (I realize that is not set in stone either), which would render the driver innocent. I wonder whether the driver ran from the scene because he/she had no insurance, no license, was drunk, or what?