MIAMI – One week after a hit-and-run crash claimed the life of a pedestrian in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, police arrested a convicted felon they said was behind the wheel.
The crash happened just before 8:40 p.m. last Tuesday in the area of Southwest Eighth Street and Eighth Avenue.
According to Miami police, Victor Manuel Rubio, 33, was speeding down Eighth Street in a gold BMW when he hit Tomas Brito, 40, as he crossed the street midblock.
Police said Rubio “immediately turned off his headlights” and took off.
An arrest report states that authorities found the heavily-damaged BMW parked outside of a home the next morning.
The coupe had blood spattered along the driver’s side and hair embedded inside of its shattered windshield, police said.
While police were at the scene, a neighbor approached officers and told them he a “suspicious” man walking around the neighborhood the night before, “acting strange and impatient,” the report states.
He provided a description of the man, seen going in and out of the vehicle, that matched Rubio and identified him in a photo line-up, police said.
Police said on Friday, a Miami-Dade police officer contacted Miami police to inform them that a witness came forward.
That witness, police said, was Rubio’s passenger.
He told police that Rubio ignored his pleas to slow down before the crash and saw him hit Brito, the report states.
Afterward, police said the man pleaded with Rubio to let him out of the car, because “he did not want any part in what had occurred,” but Rubio wouldn’t oblige and kept driving.
Rubio eventually parked the car and let the man and another passenger out.
The witness told police that he tried to get Rubio to call police and surrender “since the crash wasn’t his fault,” but Rubio refused, telling him he had been in jail three times before and “wasn’t going back to jail,” the report states.
According to the Florida Department of Corrections, Rubio has indeed been imprisoned thrice after being convicted of selling, burglary and aggravated child abuse. He was most recently released from prison in June; police say he was still on probation on the aggravated child abuse charge at the time of his arrest.
The report states that Rubio tried to get the men to call authorities and report the BMW as stolen. The witness told detectives he disagreed and walked away.
Miami police arrested Rubio at his home in the city’s Flagami neighborhood Tuesday morning on charges of leaving the scene of a crash causing death and false imprisonment.
He had not been processed in jail as of Tuesday afternoon.