Driver is charged in hit-and-run crash that killed 14-year-old bicyclist in Bal Harbour

A Miami man accused of killing a 14-year-old bicyclist in Bal Harbour last year in a hit-and-run incident is behind bars, according to Miami-Dade police.

David Plazas, 26, who has been in jail since Thursday on unrelated charges, now faces a charge of leaving the scene of an accident with a death.

He was being held Tuesday in Miami-Dade’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center with no bond from the original charges. A judge on Tuesday ordered that he be held on a $2 million bond for the charge relating to the accident, Miami Herald news partner CBS4 reported.

“The arrest of David Plazas as the alleged driver, in the August 22, 2020, hit-and run death of 14-year-old bicyclist Ethan Gordon, is only a start of a difficult emotional journey for the family of this promising young man,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement Tuesday. “In such tragedies, where victims are left abandoned on the side of the road as if their lives did not matter, the families suffer almost unendingly until the case is finally resolved.”

Ethan Gordon was crossing Collins Avenue at the 10200 block on his bicycle at around 6 p.m. Aug. 22 when he was hit by a 2018 silver KIA Optima that was traveling northbound on Collins Avenue. The teen was thrown from the bike and landed in the street, police said. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died.

Instead of stopping, police say Plazas continued north, made a U-turn, passed by the scene and then drove away. Several witnesses to the crash followed the car and got a tag number, police said.

Shortly after the crash, police said they were looking for Luisa Fernanda Ahearn, 24, who detectives said may have been involved. Police later said they were no longer looking for her and that her attorney had been in contact with detectives.

According to Plazas’ arrest report, a woman in the passenger’s seat — only identified in the report as witness No. 1 — borrowed the Kia from her roommate. Police did not say whether the witness was Ahearn.

Using the tag number, police traced down the owner of the car. The day after the crash, the owner, whom police did not identify, told detectives that his roommate called him and said the car had been in a crash “where the Kia had struck a person,” an officer wrote in the report. The owner named Plazas as the driver and handed over his phone number, police said.

The next day, police received an anonymous tip and found the Kia on Northwest 19th Avenue and 23rd Street. The car, which had a broken windshield, was impounded.

Then in December, police interviewed another witness who said Plazas had contacted him after the crash and asked him to help repair the Kia, according to the report.

Red light cameras and cellphone GPS also helped detectives place Plazas at the scene, police said.

In June, witness No. 1 gave a sworn statement at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and said she told Plazas to stop and call police, according to the report. She also told detectives she was “in fear for her life and is very afraid.”

Plazas has a series of open criminal cases in Miami-Dade.

Earlier this month, he was arrested and charged with domestic battery strangulation, and kidnapping, in two separate cases. In May, he was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance.

In all of those cases, he is awaiting trial.

Carli Teproff: 305-376-3587, @cteproff