LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A 27-year-old woman faces several charges, including reckless driving after police said she failed to stop for the stop signs on a school bus, hitting and injuring a teen.

The hit-and-run crash happened on Wednesday, Aug. 20 around 4:22 p.m. in the southeast valley.

The 13-year-old exited a school bus and was crossing at the intersection of Amigo Street and Abbeyfield Rose Drive near St. Rose Parkway when he was hit by a driver identified as Yarla Valeriano-Perez, police said.

Evidence at the scene, including dashcam video and witness statements, revealed that the Clark County school bus was stopped with its red flashing stop signs when the teen exited the bus, and was hit by a grey sedan, according to the Las Vegas Metro police arrest report.

The teen was thrown onto Valeriano-Perez’s windshield and then onto the roadway in the northbound travel lanes. Valeriano-Perez continued northbound on Amigo Street, “fleeing the collision scene,” police said.

Officers also said that Valeriano-Perez never stopped to render aid to the teen or call police following the crash.

During the investigation, police also interviewed several witnesses, including one who told them that the teen “appeared to be 8 feet in the air” after the vehicle hit him, according to the report.

The female passenger in the car with Valeriano-Perez at the time of the crash returned to the scene to speak with officers later that day, according to the report.

During her interview with police, officers learned that the two women were headed to the South Point Casino when the female passenger said she heard the impact and felt the vehicle’s “windshield glass hit her.” She looked up and assumed a person had been hit. The woman referred to Valeriano-Perez as “V” in the police interview.

“V continued driving and eventually pulled over” to let her out of the vehicle, police noted in the report. The woman told police, Valeriano-Perez dropped her off at an unknown address so she could charge her phone and then left. After her phone was charged, the female passenger returned to the scene because it was “the right thing to do,” according to the report. The woman then gave police Valeriano-Perez’s phone number and Instagram account information.

As officers were preparing to leave the crash scene, Valeriano-Perez pulled up in another vehicle and identified herself as the driver involved in the crash. She told police she was giving a friend a ride when “out of nowhere, a kid ran across the road,” she said she tried to stop, but it was “too late,” and the teen was “already on her windshield,” according to the report. She continued by telling police that she became “scared, and paranoid, so she drove away.”

Valeriano-Perez also told police she realized she shouldn’t have driven away but she was “scared,” according to the report. She also said that after striking the teen, she continued driving a distance away when her friend in the passenger seat “begged” her to let her out of the car. Valeriano-Perez pulled over and let her friend out of the car. She then drove to the parking lot across the street from the South Point Casino and parked, according to the report.

Valeriano-Perez then called her aunt and uncle to tell them about what happened and asked if they would come pick her up.

Officers later spotted the abandoned vehicle involved in the crash with “major windshield damage” near the South Point Casino, according to the report. Police also determined the vehicle matched the description of the vehicle observed in a dash camera video earlier that day.

Valeriano-Perez, was arrested by police at the crash site around 9:20 p.m. She faces the following charges:

Duty to stop at scene of a crash

Reckless driving resulting in substantial bodily harm

Overtaking or passing stopped school bus with signal

Police said she didn’t show any signs of impairment.

The teen who was hit was taken to UMC and had a broken and displaced shoulder, which needed surgery, a broken arm, a sprained knee and ankle, and severe road rash to his leg and back, according to the report.

Valeriano-Perez appeared in court on Thursday, where a judge ordered her held on $300,000 bail. Her next court date was scheduled for Aug. 26.

  • Kairos
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    5 days ago

    Laws like this are written in blood. There’s reasons why this one exists