Authorities on Monday identified the 12-year-old victim of a fatal hit-and-run accident in Stamford, Connecticut, as a student at Dolan Middle School.
Brisley Reyes was about to start seventh grade at the school his sister had also attended, principal Joseph Claps III said. Authorities withheld his name through the weekend out of respect for the family, officials said.
“Like so many of you, I am devastated,” Claps wrote in a message to the school community on Monday obtained by the Stamford Advocate. He mourned the “sweet, kind, and joyful child” whose loss was “deeply felt by all of us at Dolan.”
Brisley was riding a mini bike south along Courtland Avenue in the Fairfield County city Saturday evening with a relative who was on a scooter, police said. The pair pulled onto the shoulder “for an unknown reason” and were sitting there when a vehicle struck the mini bike at 8:47 p.m. and sent the boy flying into a nearby resident’s yard. The driver sped off.
Locals heard the crash and ran to help; two neighbors rendered CPR until first responders arrived. The boy was rushed to Stamford Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Evidence at the scene pointed to an approximately 20-year-old silver Honda with “significant damage” to the front passenger side, and a partially missing front bumper. Late Sunday, police located the errant driver, seized his car and tried to question him, but the 41-year-old Stamford resident demanded his lawyer and refused to say a word.
Police were working with prosecutors “to conduct a full investigation and obtain an arrest warrant for the suspect operator,” the department said in an update. As of Monday afternoon, he had not been publicly identified or charged.
“Losing a child is every family’s worst nightmare, and we offer our deepest condolences to this young man’s parents, siblings, extended family, and friends,” Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons, Board of Education President Michael Hyman and Superintendent Tamu Lucero said in a joint statement. “This is a painful loss for Stamford Public Schools and the entire Stamford Community. We ask you to keep this young man’s family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.”
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