Authorities have charged a 13-year-old girl with reckless homicide in the hit-and-run crash that killed an electrician bicycling to his job at Pieper Electric on Aug. 6.
The charges allege the juvenile stole and raced a Dodge Neon through the intersection of N. Fond du Lac and W. Hampton Avenues in Milwaukee about 6:30 that morning. She struck Ronald Forbes, 57, then ditched the car and fled, leaving Forbes to die on the street.
Milwaukee police arrested the girl, but provided few details on how they found her or the circumstances leading to her role in the fatality.
The girl appeared before Judge Dennis Cimpl, in the Milwaukee County Juvenile Justice Center on Monday, and was ordered to remain in custody, pending a competency hearing scheduled for Sept. 7. The complaint lists four felony counts: first-degree reckless homicide, hit-and-run causing a death, and two counts of taking a motor vehicle without owner’s consent.
Forbes was a father of three and a supervisor at Pieper Electric. He regularly bicycled to work, using a Milwaukee County Transit System bus for a part of the trip from his home in the 7500 block of W. Center St., according to a medical examiner’s report. He was traveling eastbound on Hampton at the time of the crash.
He became the sixth bicyclist killed this year by motor vehicles on Wisconsin roads. Records in five of the six cases show that drive lapses caused the fatalities.
The Active Pursuit will seek additional details on the driver and the circumstances of Forbes’ death.
