Father charged with homicide after 12-year-old daughter kills neighbor in car crash
The father of a 12-year-old girl who allegedly got behind the wheel of a car and accidentally ran down her neighbor has been charged with criminally negligent homicide.
Tomas Mejia Tol, 42, was arrested on Friday after his daughter allegedly was driving in the parking lot outside their home and killed a man who was walking his three dogs and then crashed into a tree. Enrique Vazquez, 47, was killed in the accident.
One of the man's dogs was also killed in the crash.
"So he actually said that he was the driver, but we do have video showing that it was his 12-year-old daughter who was the driver," a spokesperson for the Harris County District Attorney's Office told Houston ABC station KTRK. "The 12-year-old did indicate that her dad was allowing her to drive the car to practice driving."
Mejia has been charged with criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child.
Mejia's 2-year-old child was also in a car seat in the back of the vehicle at the time of the crash, prosecutors said.
The accident took place at about 4 p.m. on Thursday, authorities said.
The accident in still under investigation.
