5 Year Old Hit By Car Leaving School In Miami Dies
Miami police and Miami-Dade County school officials are looking into how a 5-year-old kindergarten student at Morningside Elementary was able to leave the school campus alone Monday afternoon, Local 10’s Glenna Milberg reported. Less than half an hour after the school’s 3 p.m. dismissal, Isaiah Devon Laguerre was hit by a car as he attempted to cross Biscayne Boulevard toward his home. He died Tuesday at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, where he had been listed in critical condition.As classes were dismissed Tuesday, the school’s crossing guard managed traffic in front of the school. Teachers and school administrators escorted students from the building. Parents and buses waited outside to take the children to their homes.
The school’s principal declined to comment to reporters, but Miami-Dade County Public Schools officials said its policies do not allow kindergarten-age children to leave school unaccompanied.
On Monday, Isaiah and some other students were scheduled to be picked up for a tutoring session off campus by representatives from a private company contracted by the district to provide tutoring services. No one with the district could say whether Isaiah was properly transferred from the care of an adult at the school to the care of an adult with the tutoring program.
Representatives from the tutoring company did not return phone calls.
The Laguerre’s apartment is located two blocks south and two blocks east of the elementary school. Any route from the school to the apartment crosses Biscayne Boulevard, typically congested during weekday afternoons.
The Laguerre family’s neighbors said Isaiah’s mother is raising three children, including an infant, and is with them constantly.
“Every morning, I’m out here to go to work at 8:30, and I see her with the kids taking them to school,” said Daniel Ruiz, who lives upstairs from the family.