Newly released video from police body cameras shows cops arresting a 55-year-old Ohio man suspected of seriously wounding a 9-year-old girl by striking her with his Hummer SUV as she was riding over a crosswalk and dragging her for several blocks before fleeing the scene. The youngster survived the incident, but investigators said she had “extensive trauma,” with the lower section of her left leg “missing below the knee” when police arrived.
Jeffrey Jay Atkinson was arrested last month and charged with two charges of vehicular assault, one count of child endangerment, failing to stop after an accident, and operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
According to a news release from the Dayton County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, on the night of July 22, an officer with the Dayton Police Department was stopped by a person who reported seeing a car moving on Keowee Street that was “dragging a girl under it.”
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Within minutes, police claimed they received a stream of 911 calls describing the same occurrence, including from the girl’s mother, who told the operator that her daughter was riding her bike when she was hit by a vehicle and “became caught in the wheels.”
“The vehicle, a Hummer, kept going, dragging her daughter with it,” the release reads. “The mother wasn’t sure where her daughter was.
The officer located the victim and summoned medics at the crossroads of Wayne Avenue and Clover Street, approximately 200 miles southwest of Cleveland, Ohio. “Officers on the scene with the girl administered tourniquets to the girl’s legs, as they both had extensive trauma — the lower portion of her left leg, including her foot, was missing below the knee, and her right leg had a significant injury as well,” the attorneys said.
One of the people who contacted 911 informed the dispatcher that he observed the incident and was following the motorist. The suspect’s vehicle was shortly discovered at the Cowboy Lido Bike Stop Bar in the 4000 block of Springfield Street, approximately 3.5 miles from the victim’s location.
The accused driver, eventually identified as Atkinson, emerged from the establishment and was quickly recognized by several witnesses. When officers sought to administer a field sobriety test, Atkinson conceded he was “too drunk to pass,” according to prosecutors.
The bodycam film, seen by Law&Crime, shows Atkinson going out of the establishment with his hands raised as cops ask him if he owns the Hummer parked in the lot. He’s wearing a black T-shirt with a skeleton pointing a weapon and the message “Support Your Local Outlaws.”
“Yes,” he says, as he goes toward the cops, appearing off balance and at one time grabbing the back of a chair to stay upright.
A bystander can be heard saying, “I hope you go to jail for a long time, buddy.” Another cries that Atkinson’s “judgment day is coming.”
Atkinson appears to remark, “I’m sorry,” and the bystanders hurl profanities at him for injuring a child and refusing to stop. When police tell Atkinson that they will conduct a battery of tests to determine whether he is impaired, he thinks it is pointless.
“Oh, f— that, I’m already impaired,” he says. “I already know that,” he says.
Atkinson agrees to take the tests but provides an ironic rationale for why he may fare poorly.
“No, wait. Before I accomplished this, I was in a major motorcycle accident. “I was hit head-on by a drunk driver, and I have metal up my leg,” he says, pointing to his left leg. “I’ve got metal in my right leg. “I’ve got metal in my left arm.”
The footage cuts to Atkinson telling the officer that he “can’t focus” before saying, “You know what? F— it, I am drunk. I will confess it. I own a bar.
Police then placed him in the back of a police cruiser and drove him to Montgomery County Jail, where he is being held on a $500,000 bond.