Angry residents attacked a taxi driver who allegedly killed a toddler as she was trying to cross a road in Lavender Hill.
Two-year-old Caitlin Hartnick was going to her friend’s home across the street when she was hit by a Toyota Quantum on Saturday afternoon along St Alexander Road in St Montague Village.
Mense wanted to take the taxi but the driver sped off and then stopped a few metres away before he ran into someone’s yard.
Residents then gooied the minibus with klippe and broke its windows, while the driver managed to escape unharmed.
Caitlin’s hartseer mom Rachel, 32, says almal was feeling jolly just minutes before the horrific collision.
“My daughter was walking to her friend’s home as she usually did,” she explains.
“The taxi bumped her, it must have been the pressure of the taxi on top of her [that killed her]. Her ear burst, and the car drove over her chest too.”
Rachel says no one saw the accident happen: “We don’t know what exactly happened to my daughter, all we can do is speculate that the driver was pulling off when he drove over her.
“She was very tiny for her age and the Quantum is big, so we assume that he didn’t see her.
“We know that he wasn’t speeding because the impact would have flung her, and there were skid marks on the road.”
The mom tells the Daily Voice she is not kwaad at the driver.
“He is someone who is known to my family because he is friends with my brother,” she says.
“My mom is planning to go to see his family so he can know that we have forgiven him.
“We don’t blame him and we aren’t angry at all, but we understand why the community members were angry on that day, Caitlin was their child too, they loved her as their own child.
“The driver had to be taken away because people wanted to hit him but he managed to run in someone’s yard until the police came to get him, so we couldn’t speak to him on the scene.”
Police spokesperson André Traut confirms: “A 29-year-old taxi driver was arrested on a charge of culpable homicide after the two-year-old girl was knocked down and killed in St Alexander Street, Lavender Hill that afternoon.
“The suspect is expected to make his court appearance on Monday in Wynberg Magistrate’s Court.”
mandilakhe.tshwete@inl.co.za