Mother pleads for help to find hit-and-run driver who struck her son

14-year-old boy was riding electric scooter when he was hit

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A mother of a 14-year-old boy who seriously injured in a hit-and-run crash is asking the public for help to find the driver.

"It wouldn't have cost her anything to get out and help my poor child," Reina Guttierez, the victims' mother said at new conference Tuesday at Broward Health Medical Center.

Her son, Alexis Gutierrez, is still listed in serious condition at the hospital.

Fort Lauderdale police said Alexis Gutierrez was riding an electric scooter with his older brother and sister in the 600 block of North Federal Highway around 4 a.m. on Dec. 1 when he was struck by a maroon four-door sedan. The driver, a white woman with short curly brown hair, did not stop to help Alexis and drove away toward Holiday Park, police said.

Paramedics said the boy was riding a Lime electric scooter. Last month, several electric scooters companies began offering services in Fort Lauderdale. Using a mobile phone app, riders can rent the scooters for a small fee and leave them at their destination. 

“She's making a plea to the person that did this that if they're a mother or father, a family member, to put themselves in her shoes," said Major Frank Sousa, of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. "To leave her son, discarded on the roadway like that, and not even come out and offer assistance."

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Traffic Homicide Investigator Jill Hirsch at 954-828-5753 or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS.