A 33-year-old mother in Florida was arrested after she allegedly hit her own juvenile son with her SUV while actually attempting to run down several children who were in a fight with the boy. Quantavia Miltanise Samuel was taken into custody on Tuesday and charged with one count of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
On Monday afternoon, Samuel had told her son to return to school and pick up a backpack that his little brother had left behind, Miami Police Department’s Public Information Officer Michael Vega said in a news briefing broadcast by Miami NBC affiliate WTVJ.
Quantavia Miltanise Samuel (Miami-Dade Correctional Facility)
While going to retrieve the backpack, Samuel’s son got into a confrontation with another child. That other child went home to get his cousin, and then the two boys found Samuel’s son, and the kids got into a physical fight, police said. A little before 6 p.m., the boy called his mother and said that he was being “jumped” by some other juveniles, one of whom he claimed might be armed with a handgun.
Samuel then got into her car, a Toyota Rav4, and drove to Northwest 5th Avenue and 77th Street, where the altercation was taking place.
“According to the defendant, when she arrived in the area of the aforementioned intersection, she struck her son with the Toyota Rav4 SUV she was operating,” a probable cause affidavit obtained by Tampa NBC affiliate WFLA stated. “When asked how she managed to strike her son with the vehicle, the defendant stated ‘I was trying to get them off my son.””
After striking her son with the SUV, police say Samuel then got out and helped her son get into the passenger seat of the vehicle as the other two kids fled the scene on foot. Samuel allegedly continued with the vigilante conduct by pursuing the two juveniles and following them back to one of their houses. Once at the residence, Vega said Samuel called the police for the first time.
When police arrived on the scene and interviewed the parties involved, they determined that there was no gun involved in the altercation. The Department of Children and Families was called in to assist in the investigation.
As police began investigating, Samuel’s son reportedly started to feel the effects of the collision and began experiencing pain in his hip and legs. He was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s pediatric emergency room, WFLA reported.
“The mom, instead of calling police to respond and assist, decides to take the law into her own hands, gets to the school and tries to run over the two juveniles, but accidentally hits her own son,” Vega said. “She wanted to hit these two kids. This is what we say all the time, if there’s a problem like this, the correct thing would have been that she call the police and then she can respond, which if we would have been there, we would have prevented this.”
Samuel was booked and is currently being held in lieu of $15,000 bond, jail records show.
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