Tragic impact

A hit-and-run leaves a Lake Highlands family hurting and wondering

Story by christina hughes Babb

Shurinda Green was asleep when she received the phone call.

“Your brother has been hit by a car,“ said her college-age cousin Jordon Green.

“Stop playing,” responded the teenager, still half asleep.

But Jordon was serious: “Go get your parents.”

Within minutes, Shurinda’s dad, Andrew Green Sr., was sprinting up Whitehurst toward Skillman. It was a two-mile run from the family’s apartment to the accident scene.

By the time he arrived, a blue tarp covered his son’s slim body, and the person who had run him down with a dark sport utility vehicle had disappeared into the night.

Today, the family is willing to talk about what happened, hoping that publicity will lead police to the driver.

Mom Tyrlonda Banks has a hard time containing her tears. Sister Shurinda is stiff and still, looking uncomfortable like a visitor in an unfamiliar world. Dad Andrew Sr.’s tall frame is bent at the waist, and he periodically clutches his gut as if the discussion induces physical pain.

Prior to the accident, Andrew Jr. had been grounded a couple weekends as punishment for some forgettable misbehavior, but, on the contigent that he do extra chores the next few weeks, his parents let him attend the Lake Highlands High School football game Friday, Oct. 22, followed by a Young Life event, after which he was told he could spend the night with a friend, Nathan Hardeman, at the Soho apartments near school.

During the night, the boys left the Soho on foot to meet Jordon Green. Sometime around 2 a.m. near the construction-heavy intersection of Skillman and Church, Andrew Jr. stepped into the road where a car — maybe a Suburban, maybe an SUV, maybe navy or black with dark tinted windows — hit him, dragged his body several hundred feet and then sped away.

Nathan and Jordon witnessed the impact. Jordon can only vaguely describe the car but he remembers a couple eerie details.

“Before it hit Andrew, the car sped up. I heard it accelerate, saw it,” he says. “There were two people in the car. The passenger side window was down, and an arm hung out,” Jordon says. Even when they hit Andrew, he adds, that arm didn’t flinch.

Jordon tried to administer CPR, but says he didn’t really know what to do. And there was so much blood. A nurse driving home from work stopped. She told the boys she could feel a pulse. But when Dallas Fire Rescue arrived moments later, there was no sign of life. At 2:10 a.m., the medical examiner on the scene declared Andrew dead.

Jordan and Hardeman spent hours in separate police crusiers, recounting the events. Andrew’s body lay covered in the street for hours.

“I wasn’t even allowed to touch him,” his mother recalls. “We can’t figure out why he was in the street.”

It’s one of several things that may never be understood about that night. As of midFebruary, police still have no suspects, says Lt. Scott Bratcher with the Dallas Police Department traffic division.

Multiple tips have been called in — there were rumors the car was from the neighborhood, or that the driver targeted Andrew — but police say they followed every lead to no avail.

“Every tip or clue that has been called in has been followed up on,” Bratcher says. “We just have not received anything that has panned out.”

He believes alcohol could have played a role on the driver’s end.

“Had this person been sober and stopped, it’s likely that they would not have faced charges. You’ve got a kid here who walked into the street in the middle of the night from behind a construction site. But it’s 2 a.m.: At that time of night, a lot of times you see alcohol or drugs involved.”