The brother of a 16-year-old boy who was killed by a driver who allegedly ran a stop sign in South LA and then tried to shake the victim loose from her car’s windshield before fleeing on foot, expressed his thanks Thursday that the suspect was in custody.
Hernan Martinez died at the scene of the crash, which occurred about 9:35 p.m. Sept. 22 at the intersection of 60th Street at 10th Avenue, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Martinez’s younger sister, Vicky, was also struck and was critically injured.
Raygine Glentasia Evans, 28, was arrested about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in Los Angeles and booked into the county jail, where she remained in lieu of more than $3 million bail, police said.
Evans was set to appear in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Thursday for arraignment, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
She was charged Oct. 8 with one felony count of murder stemming from the boy’s death, along with one felony count of reckless driving on a highway causing a specified injury, two felony counts of hit-and-run driving resulting in death or serious injury to another person and one misdemeanor count of hit-and-run driving resulting in property damage, according to the complaint.
The complaint also alleges that Evans has prior convictions for robbery in 2018 and grand theft in 2021.
According to the LAPD, Evans has been cited for reckless driving and running stop signs nine times and was wanted in connection with multiple robberies, including 10 in Los Angeles.
Police allege she was driving a blue 2025 Nissan Sentra eastbound on 60th Street at 10th Avenue when she ran past a stop sign at 80 mph and struck Martinez and his sister.
Hernan’s brother, Eliseo Martinez, told reporters his mother was able to pull Vicky away from the car. He said the girl suffered a fractured pelvis and required surgery.
The mother was not hit.
At a news conference with police and family members near a memorial at the crash site, Eliseo Martinez said the fact the suspect had been at large weighed heavily on him and his mother.
Police said Evans kept driving until the sedan struck a parked vehicle. She and a female passenger then got out of the Sentra and fled in an unknown direction, authorities said.
The passenger has been identified as Joannae Shavon Rosby, according to police.
Witnesses said the boy’s body was lodged in the Sentra’s windshield until the sedan struck the parked car.
Detective Ryan Moreno of the LAPD’s South Traffic Division, who attended Thursday’s news conference, said the suspect swerved the car in an attempt to dislodge the injured teen from her smashed windshield.
The driver and passenger took some items out of the car before being picked up by someone driving a red Honda Accord, Moreno said.