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Boy survives hit-run; USF student arrested
By AMY HERDY © St. Petersburg Times, published January 24, 2001 TAMPA -- When she heard the crash, Kennishia Anderson knew it involved a child. Handing off her 1-year-old sonto his aunt, Anderson ran down the street toward E 138th Avenue. There she saw the motionless, form of her 4-year-old son, Jontae Johnson, not far from his bent bicycle. "My heart dropped," Anderson later recalled of Monday afternoon's incident. "I grabbed him, talked to him. At first he wasn't saying anything, but when he heard my voice he started screaming." As she held her son, witnesses told her of a white pickup truck that had run over him, then sped away. "I want to know who would do this to my child, anybody's child, and keep going," she asked through tears Tuesday afternoon from Jontae's bedside in the intensive care unit of Tampa General Hospital. Jontae was listed in critical condition. Within hours, sheriff's deputies had her answer. Investigators said Mario Monteleone Jr., a 21-year-old University of South Florida student, ran over Jontae with his white 2000 Chevrolet S-10 pickup, then fled the scene to his home at 10137 Hoop Court in Port Richey where he scraped a decal off his truck that read, "Caught ya' lookin." Sheriff's Lt. Rod Reder said Monteleone left class Monday afternoon about 3:30 at the nearby USF campus on Fowler Avenue and cut through neighborhoods to avoid heavy traffic on Fletcher Avenue. Jontae, who recently had removed the training wheels himself from the blue bicycle he got for his November birthday, had broken his mother's rule of staying near her Rainbow Apartment complex building on N Inoma Street, she said. Instead, he had ventured about a half block away to watch older children play football in a field off E 138th Avenue when he rode from between two parked cars and was struck, then run over by what witnesses described as an all-white pickup truck with a temporary tag. Tuesday, Monteleone returned to the USF campus, and was in class when USF police Sgt. Joe Anderson noticed the student's truck matched the description of one wanted by deputies in the hit and run incident. Sgt. Anderson tracked down Monteleone as the truck's owner, Reder said, and pulled him out of class. "The guy admitted to it," Reder said, and was charged with leaving the scene of an accident with serious bodily injury. Jontae's mother was relieved that the man who investigators say hurt her son had been caught. "I will let the courts deal with him," she said. "I just want my baby to get better." Jontae, who was flown to TGH after the crash, should heal completely from his injuries, which include a leg broken in two places, a bruised lung, bruised spleen and lacerated liver, said TGH pediatric trauma physician Dr. Dan Riggs. - Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or herdy@sptimes.com.
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