Girl, 5, dies in hit-and-run on West Side
BY STEFANO ESPOSITO AND HUNTER CLAUSS Staff Reporters July 2, 2012 8:58PM
Monet Robinson, 5, killed by a hit-and-run driver in Lawndale.
Article Extras
Updated: July 3, 2012 2:49PM
Cassandra Zeno has watched cars tear up and down her residential Lawndale street night after night, as though drivers thought they were on an expressway.
“I said out of my own mouth, some kid is going to get killed out here,” Zeno said.
On Monday night, Zeno’s nightmare came true when a speeding car slammed into a 5-year-old girl in the 1500 block of South Millard.
A green four-door Pontiac struck the youngster — identified as Monae Lucio by a relative but a Monet Robinson by the Cook County medical examiner’s office, of the 1500 block of South Millard — as she crossed the street around 7:54 p.m. The car then took off. The driver was believed to be in his 20s, and the car was described as having extensive damage on the passenger side.
The 5-year-old girl was pronounced dead at 8:19 p.m. at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Shanty Pirtle, 31, said she was sitting on her porch when she saw the Pontiac speeding down the street and slam into the little girl.
“The man comes down the street speeding, he hits her, stops and looks out the window,” Pirtle said. “He sees her lying on the ground and takes off.”
Pirtle said the car hit the girl so hard that she was tossed into the air. Darrelle Covington, 27, the girl’s uncle, said she was at his house visiting when she was killed.
“She was a cute little girl,” Covington said. “She was an angel. Everyone wanted to be around her.”
Covington said she lived with her grandmother in another neighborhood but was a frequent visitor who loved to play with the other young children on South Millard. The girl’s grieving mother, surrounded by friends and family outside Mount Sinai Hospital, did not want to comment.
Neighbors said they have been trying for months to get the city to install speed bumps on their stretch of South Millard.
“It’s crazy,” Covington said. “People speed up, show off their cars, trying to impress (women).”
Contributing: Ben Meyer-Abbott, LeeAnn Shelton
