WASHINGTON — The driver who struck and killed a 5-month-old baby in a stroller in a Lansdowne crosswalk last week was looking at his phone before the collision, a witness told the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office.
The driver, a 45-year-old Leesburg man in a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, was making a left turn onto Riverside Parkway from Coton Manor Drive when he struck the child and his mother, according to a police affidavit filed Aug. 31 seeking a search warrant to review the two cellphones the driver had in his possession at the time of the crash.
The child’s mother was left with serious but non-life threatening injuries in the crash.
A teenage driver who was following behind the driver of the Jeep said he saw the man “holding a phone in his left hand as if he was watching or reading something” before the crash, according to the affidavit.
Before the collision, the witness said the driver of the Jeep had been “tailgating” the vehicle in front of him and “sped up fast” as he made the turn.
The witness said after striking the pedestrians, the driver of the Jeep pulled over onto the grass shoulder and crouched down next to the Jeep.
The driver of the Jeep, who had his lawyer with him by the time police sought to question him at the scene, provided his license and insurance information but declined to provide a statement to investigators at the scene. The lawyer later related to police the man was in possession of two cellphones at the time of the crash and that law enforcement would need a search warrant to seize them.
So far, the sheriff’s office has issued four search warrants — three covering the driver’s cellphones and one covering the driver’s vehicle.
WTOP’s Neal Augenstein contributed to this report.
