Sunday, December 27, 2020

Another Salemite Dead after Hit and Run

A family got the worst kind of holiday news last week. 

After striking and killing Hermilo Mata Jr. Tuesday evening on a residential street, a driver abandoned their car and fled the scene.

From the Salem PD, with edits:

On December 22, 2020 at approximately 6:45 p.m. Salem Police officers responded to the 3700 block of Kingdom Way NE on the report of a pedestrian struck by a [person driving a] vehicle.

Officers located the victim, Hermilo Mata Jr., age 63 of Salem, in the roadway. Mata was transported to Salem Health where he was later declared deceased.

The [driver of the] vehicle that struck Mata fled the scene but [the car] was later located and seized by investigating officers. The driver of the vehicle has not been located.

This is an ongoing investigation, and as such details will not be released until the case has been updated.

Anyone with information please call the Salem Police Tips Line at 503-588-8477. [link added, rhetoric erasing the driver modified]

Saturday's rewrite in print

This post may be updated.

Back in 2015 we said "troubling"
but really, how troubled are we?
Killed in 2020
Killed in 2019
Killed in 2018
Killed in 2017
Killed in 2016:
Killed in 2015:
On erasing the driver - Columbia Journalism Review

For more discussion of language see these recent examples:

For more on the cultural and legal context of our autoism in which we minimize the responsibility of drivers and shift blame to people on foot, see:

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