A 25-year-old Texas woman is behind bars after authorities say she ordered a 9-year-old girl to drive her car, which crashed and landed the young child in the hospital with serious injuries.
Home surveillance video footage caught the car swiftly skidding down a street in reverse with the driver’s side door open. Police say the child was flung out of the car when it suddenly crashed into a neighbor’s car.
The incident happened in a San Antonio residential neighborhood on Nov. 12.
Authorities say that 25-year-old Ladeja Pickett was decorating her home for Christmas when she asked the child of a family friend to move her car.
The mother of the young girl told Pickett that her daughter didn’t know how to drive, but Pickett responded, “She’s going to learn.”
A Bexar County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson told People that Pickett said the child knew where the car keys were and “retrieved them independently.”
According to the child’s mom, Pickett placed the 9-year-old girl in the driver’s seat, put the car in reverse, and then let the girl take it from there.
With her foot on the gas, the car sped out of the driveway, hit the curb, spun out, and came to a stop after crashing into a neighbor’s truck, the child’s mother said.
“(Pickett) had no right to hand a minor keys, (Pickett) had no right to put that car in reverse,” the child’s mother told KSAT.
Deputies say the child was thrown from the car and suffered deep cuts on her forehead and road rash.
Her mother says she underwent three surgical procedures in the days after the incident and will have to use a wheelchair for a while.
Doctors estimate it will take three months for the girl to fully recover from her injuries.
Pickett was arrested and charged with injury to a child and endangering a child.
Atlanta Black Star has reached out to police for more information.
