Christine Shuman, 35, is behind bars, suspected of leaving the scene of a hit-and-run that left a 12-year-old New Mexico boy badly injured.
Court documents said Shuman told police she looked away from the road to discipline her children, according to KRQE. She then hit Brandon Lopez. Shuman told police she panicked and left the scene, eventually hiding her car under a tarp after the crash. Further investigation revealed that Shuman knew Brandon.
Brandon had called his mother, Erin Lopez, to ask her to pick him up at Legacy Church in Portales. When Erin arrived in the area, she saw her son lying in the road with two police officers around him.
"I stopped my car in the middle of the road and I said, 'That’s my son,'" Erin said to KRQE. The police officers did not let Lopez approach her son. “They would not let me go near Brandon,” she said of the police. “They would not let me ride in the ambulance. They had me go sit in my car.”
Brandon was airlifted to a hospital in Lubbock. His father, Peter Lopez, said Brandon suffered “a broken arm, broken ankle, and a couple collapsed arteries that are not letting blood go to his brain correctly.”
Erin said she and her husband work with Shuman, who is charged with leaving the scene of a crash, causing great bodily harm, careless driving, and tampering with evidence, according to KRQE.
“I would’ve rather not known who it was, knowing that I knew who it was today,” Erin said to KRQE.
