Clearwater police arrest driver accused of fleeing after hitting man on scooter
Clearwater police have arrested a man accused of hitting another man on a motorized mobility scooter on Monday and then driving away without calling for help.
Kris T. Paterson, 37, of Port Richey was booked into the Pinellas County Jail late Monday on a charge of leaving the scene of a crash involving injury.
The scooter rider, 80-year-old Ernest Coluzzi of Clearwater, died Wednesday afternoon at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, police said in an update Wednesday.
“It is expected that the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office will file upgraded charges against the suspect in the case,” the update said.
Paterson was driving a 2021 Dodge Ram pickup about 2:45 p.m. when he made a right turn from a business parking lot to go east on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard near Hampton Road and hit Coluzzi as he rode a mobility scooter.
Paterson kept driving east on Gulf-to-Bay at a high rate of speed, stopping about a half-mile away to remove the scooter from under his truck, according to police.
Paterson told investigators he was aware he had run over something but was not aware it was a person, and that he was running late for work, police said.
Multiple witnesses supplied video or photos that helped police with the investigation.
”We’d like to thank the members of the community for the way they banded together after witnessing this crash,” police Chief Eric Gandy said in a statement included in a news release Tuesday. “They did what this driver failed to do — call police and try to help.”
Paterson was being held without bail Tuesday ahead of his first court appearance.
