Hit-and-run victim’s family asks driver to surrender to Fort Lauderdale police

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Glen Flaherty’s relatives said on Friday that they want the driver who ran him over and fled to surrender to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

Flaherty, 55, was the youngest of nine siblings and his sister Maureen Anderson is the eldest. The coronavirus pandemic prevented them from seeing each other.

“If he walked into a crowded room it became a party because he was there,” Anderson said. “He was kind of the light of the family. He was one of the funniest people you would ever meet and could make anybody smile.”

She also said Flaherty loved to visit South Florida from Minnesota. The driver of a dark cargo van struck him early Thursday morning near the intersection of Northeast Fourth Avenue and 16th Street in Fort Lauderdale.

Glen Flaherty, a tourist from Minnesota, died in the hospital after a driver struck him and left him in the street on Thursday morning in Fort Lauderdale, police said. He was 55.

A witness called 911. Fire Rescue personnel rushed Flaherty, of Minneapolis, to the hospital where he underwent surgery.

“There were a couple of us who wanted to fly right down but we never got a chance to,” Anderson said. “We never got a chance to see him.”

Doctors declared him dead and notified his family on Friday.

“I just have to think that the more somebody thinks about it the more they will think something needs to be said, something needs to be done,” Anderson said.

Detectives were asking anyone with information about the driver of the van who was involved in the fatal hit-and-run crash to call Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.

Related story: Cargo van fatally strikes Minnesota man in Fort Lauderdale, then flees, police say


About the Authors

The Emmy Award-winning journalist joined the Local 10 News team in 2013. She wrote for the Miami Herald for more than 9 years and won a Green Eyeshade Award.

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