Gilroy
– Police named the driver who hit an 8-year-old boy Monday
morning as Maricela Guerrero, 49, confirming widespread rumors that
the Gilroy woman, mother of world champion boxer Robert
”
The Ghost
”
Guerrero, was involved in the accident. Guerrero was cited for
failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
Gilroy – Police named the driver who hit an 8-year-old boy Monday morning as Maricela Guerrero, 49, confirming widespread rumors that the Gilroy woman, mother of world champion boxer Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, was involved in the accident. Guerrero was cited for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
The accident injured Isaiah Mollinedo-Navarro, a third-grader at Las Animas Elementary School. Mollinedo-Navarro was crossing legally in a designated crosswalk when Guerrero turned west onto Welburn Avenue from Wren Avenue southbound at 8:10am Monday, hitting the boy.
Mollinedo-Navarro was transported to a local hospital, then flown by air ambulance to a nearby trauma center. His shin was badly bruised, but he was otherwise uninjured.
Gilroy Police Sgt. Jim Gillio apologized for not naming the driver earlier. Gillio, the department’s new public information officer, was unsure if the information was releasable when the Dispatch requested the driver’s name Monday and Tuesday.
Readers criticized the paper for the omission, which was inconsistent with the naming of other drivers involved in pedestrian accidents last year.
Thus far, police have declined to release the name of the driver who struck and killed 5-year-old Julio Gonzalez in October 2006.
The district attorney’s office decided not to press charges against the driver in February, but Capt. Kurt Svardal, the department’s public information officer at the time, said the name was still not releasable because the investigation could be re-opened later. Wednesday, Gillio said he would look into whether the driver’s name was now releasable.
