Catastrophic chain of events led to 5-year-old’s death, reports say
BOYNTON BEACH — A catastrophic series of events that would leave a 5-year-old boy dead began when a man with drugs and no driver’s license decided to speed away from police, according to newly released arrest reports.
Officers ultimately used a stun gun to subdue and detain Lex Eugene, 20, of Boynton Beach, but only after Eugene had fatally struck Jayden Readon during his getaway attempt, police said.
As Boynton Beach police walked back to their patrol cars with Eugene in custody, they noticed a “large, chaotic crowd” gathering. They saw a boy in a nearby ditch not moving, realizing then that 5-year-old Jayden had been struck, police said.
Newly released arrest reports, and police dispatch audio, shed light on the events surrounding Saturday’s fatal crashandthemoments that followed.
“I think he [crashed] into somebody,” one officer tells a dispatcher just after the crash about 2 p.m. Seconds later, another officer tells a dispatcher, “Get [fire department] over here. We’ve got a baby ... a baby down.”
After the crash, Ida Cuevas, Jayden’s grandmother, had questioned whether police erred, saying “that there shouldn’t be a highspeed chase in a residential area.” An arrest report doesn’t say howlong the officer had been behind Eugene in traffic.
But Boynton Beach Police Chief Jeffrey Katz told the Sun Sentinel on Tuesday that he reviewed the audio from the officer in Saturday’s case, and found that it was not a police pursuit. Rather, itwas a case of reckless driving.
The officer activated his lights to stop the driver, and on the audio, the officer said that the driverwas not stopping, Katz said. The officer called in to report the reckless driving, and the fatal crash happened soon after, the chief said.
There is just 0.3 of a mile between Miner Road and Federal Highway, the point where police say Eugene started to speed up, and Miner Road and Summit Road, where police say Eugene lost control of the car and collided with the boy.
It began Saturday afternoon when a Boynton Beach police officer pulled behind Eugene as he headed north on Federal Highway toward Miner Road. Eugene— who police say was in possession of 213 pills of heroin, in addition to other drugs— was driving a white 2008 Buick Enclave with a license plate that had expired nearly a year ago, an arrest report said.
As an officer started to read off the vehicle information to a dispatcher, Eugene turned left ontoMiner Road and “began speeding at an extremely high rate of speed for a residential area,” an officer wrote in the report.
Police said there were “numerous pedestrians” on the sidewalk as Eugene went by at about 70 mph, more than double the 30 mph speed limit, according to the report.
Shortly after, the officer turned on lights and sirens to try to pull over Eugene. Eugene instead kept speeding down Miner Road and started driving westbound in the eastbound lanes to pass a slower driver, police said.
Themove causedEugene to drive directly toward another Boynton Beach police officer about a block away, according to the report. Eugene then made a hard right turn onto Summit Road from Miner Road in Hypoluxo that caused him to lose control because of his high speed, police said.
“As the vehicle left the roadway it traveled over the pedestrian sidewalk, where the front of the vehicle impacted into [Jayden] walking with his grandparents, who narrowly escaped being hit by the vehicle,” an investigator wrote in the report.
The SUV kept going through a fence and down into a water-retention area where the SUV got stuck, police said.
Eugene escaped fromthe SUV through the driver’s side window and ran. As he did, police said he threw downa large bag, which laterwas found to have heroin inside, police said. Just as Eugene appeared as if he was about to jump a fence, anofficer used a stungunon him, and arrested him, according to the report.
When police saw Jayden in a nearby ditch not moving, they went to give him first aid. Paramedics then took the child to Delray Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said.
Officers said they found heroin, Xanax and alprazolam pills, along with $2,120 found in Eugene’s pocket. Police checked Eugene’s records to discover he only had an ID card but didn’t have a driver’s license.
John Kazanjian, president of the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association, on Tuesday echoed the chief’s comments that there was no pursuit. “It was an attempt to do a traffic stop and the guy fled,” Kazanjian said. “He didn’t want to stop. ... It’s a tragedy.”
The collision occurred across the street from Rolling Green Elementary School, where on Tuesday afternoon children heading home walked past a mangled chain-link fence and a memorial of teddy bears and balloons left for the boy who died Saturday.
Miner Road is a narrow, two-lane street lined with homes and a few businesses in a low-income neighborhood, not far from gated condominium communities in Boynton Beach.
Eugene lives less than 1.5 miles away from the site of where the car he drove struck the child, according to the police report.
Eugene faces vehicular homicide, driving without a license, hit and run, fleeing and eluding, resisting arrest and several drug charges. He was held in Palm Beach County Jail without bond.
Staff researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.
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