Hit-and-run drunk driver kills 11-year-old girl in Helsinki

The man struck the girl, apparently on a pedestrian crossing, and fled from the scene in Herttoniemi

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An 11-year-old girl was run over and killed by a drunk driver in Helsinki’s Herttoniemi district on Tuesday evening. The driver fled the scene of the accident.
      The police have apprehended a 25-year-old man from Helsinki, who is suspected of running the girl over. The man’s breathalyser test reading was 2.25 per mille, four times the legal limit for DUI and nearly twice that for aggravated drunken driving.
     
The scene of the accident was on Viikintie, close to the border between the districts of Herttoniemi and Viikki. According to the police, everything points to the conclusion that the girl was using a pedestrian crossing at the time she was hit.
      ”Concluding from the point of collision, this is the case. The girl had been hurled a great distance, which means that the speed at impact must have been high”, reported Chief Inspector Juha Hakola from the Helsinki Police Department.
      The drunk driver had been driving along Viikintie from the direction of Itäväylä, heading towards the junction of Viilarintie. The speed limit at the probable site of the accident is 60 kilometres per hour.
     
The hit-and-run occurred between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. The police were notified of the case just before 7:00 p.m., by a person close to the suspected perpetrator.
      After coming home, the suspect had told the informant that he had run someone over, after which he had left home.
      At around the same time, the police were notified of an 11-year-old girl who had not returned home. Police patrols began to comb the route of the suspected drunk driver, eventually finding the victim by the side of Viikintie.
      Following a short search, the police found the heavily intoxicated driver at his workplace in Herttoniemi.
     
The incident is being investigated as aggravated negligent manslaughter, aggravated endangering of traffic safety, and as aggravated drunk driving.
      It is likely that there were no eyewitnesses. The police was not notified of any observations by motorists or residents on Tuesday evening.
      Investigators are seeking information on the movements of the car in question between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the Viikki and Herttoniemi areas. The car is a light-coloured Mazda 626 saloon, first registered in 1997.
     
On Wednesday it was reported, initially in the late-edition tabloids Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti, that the suspected driver had previous convictions for drunk driving, but that his licence was not currently revoked, since some time had passed since the earlier cases.
      In any event, the tragic incident is likely to provoke a visceral reaction among people, particularly the parents of young children, and to some extent it recalls a case that took place in another Helsinki suburb in 2002.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Danger lurks at pedestrian crossings - children at risk in Helsinki (16.8.2005)

See also:
  Helsinki neighbourhood shocked at death of young girl at pedestrian crossing (15.8.2002)

Helsingin Sanomat