A search for someone seen leaving a Florida convenience store on an electric bicycle led an officer to a 14-year-old lying injured beside the road. The teenager was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
The West Melbourne Police Department announced the October 13 arrest of the store’s owner, Kavan Vishnubhai Patel, 32. Detectives accused him of intentionally striking the teenager with his vehicle and leaving the scene.
Officers had initially been called to a possible burglary in progress at the Corner Store, at 1100 S. Wickham Road, around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. They arrived within four minutes and spoke with Patel.
Patel told officers he had received an alarm company alert and, through the store’s surveillance system, saw that the front glass door had been broken. He described someone in a light-colored hoodie leaving the area on an electric bicycle.
Along the Road
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Brevard County sheriff’s deputies and Melbourne police officers joined West Melbourne officers in searching the surrounding area. Melbourne’s police K-9 Unit and West Melbourne’s police Drone Unit also assisted.
The teenager found beside the road matched the description Patel had provided and appeared to have been struck by a vehicle.
According to the arrest affidavit, Patel had followed the rider to Coconut Grove Avenue and intentionally struck him with his Subaru at approximately 30 mph. He told detectives he made a U-turn and returned to look for the rider but could not locate him before going back to the store.
“Patel withheld this information from responding officers and did not disclose his involvement until confronted by detectives,” the department wrote in its announcement.
The department attributed the teenager’s nearly hour-long wait beside the road without medical assistance to Patel’s failure to stop, render aid, or notify law enforcement.
The announcement described the original call as a possible burglary. The available police records identify the injured teenager as the rider who fled the store but do not establish that he entered the business or stole anything.
The Aftermath
Patel was charged with aggravated battery and leaving the scene of a crash involving great bodily injury.
Florida’s duty-to-render-aid law requires drivers involved in injury crashes to provide reasonable assistance. That includes arranging transportation for medical treatment when treatment is evidently necessary or the injured person requests it.
Under the state’s injury-crash hit-and-run statute, drivers must stop at or as close as possible to the scene and remain until they fulfill their information and assistance duties. The statute also provides for driver’s-license revocation of at least three years for violations of those stop-and-remain requirements.
The department’s October 13 announcement reported that Patel was being held at the Brevard County Jail without bond.
All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.