Wichita grad said sorry after deadly crash with teen fleeing party shooting: affidavit
A 15-year-old girl running away from a fatal shooting at a high school graduation party in May was hit and killed by a car driven by a party co-host who was also fleeing the gunfire, according to a probable cause affidavit in the case.
Witnesses told police that the party co-host, 18-year-old Samara Rockmore, stopped and apologized after crashing into Jaxsen M. Hunt of Wichita as Hunt crossed 25th Street. She then got back into her car and drove off.
Friends took Hunt to a Wichita hospital, where she died.
Rockmore also initially went to the hospital, parked her car in the emergency room lot and walked toward the entrance, hospital surveillance video shows.
But she didn’t go inside. She “was too nervous,” she would later say.
Rockmore’s mother eventually called 911, and her daughter turned herself in.
The 18-year-old is now facing one felony charge in connection with the hit-and-run collision: failure to stop at an accident that she knew or should have known resulted in injury or death.
The new details about the deadly crash are part of the affidavit, released Monday by a Sedgwick County judge, that was used to support the criminal charge in Hunt’s May 28 death.
The affidavit says Rockmore, Hunt and others fled a graduation party that Rockmore was co-hosting at Touch of Class, 3115 E. 25th St. North, after gunfire broke out around 11:25 p.m. during a fight inside the venue. The shooting killed 17-year-old Boisy D. Barefield of Wichita. The homicide investigation is still open and active, Wichita police spokesman Officer Trevor Macy said Tuesday. To date, no one has been arrested or charged.
In the ensuing chaos, a “large crowd” fled the venue and dispersed into the surrounding neighborhood; authorities estimate more than 100 people attended the party.
Hunt, whose mother told her by text message “to get home” after the shooting started, was among party-goers who left on foot, the affidavit says. She was hit by Rockmore’s 2006 Chrysler 300 as she crossed 25th Street North at Estelle, according to the affidavit
Wichita police say Hunt was running toward a vehicle of friends that had stopped there when she was struck.
Witnesses told police the driver– later identified as Rockmore – got out of her car after striking Hunt and apologized, saying she “didn’t mean” to hit her and that the collision was “an accident,” the affidavit says.
Rockmore also reportedly asked if Hunt “needed to be taken to the hospital,” the affidavit says a witness told police.
But she drove off instead of helping or calling 911. She went to Wesley Medical Center shortly before midnight but left after a few minutes without going inside of the hospital, the affidavit says hospital surveillance video shows.
When Rockmore got home, she told her mother that damage on her car was from hitting a curb, the affidavit says.
Rockmore’s mother called authorities the next morning.
In a subsequent interview with police, Rockmore said she ran out of a side door of the event venue after the shooting started, got into her vehicle and fled.
She told police after she turned west on 25th Street North and hit a curb but didn’t stop because she was concerned about damaging a tire and “didn’t want my car to mess up.”
She told police she “was scared” by the gunfire, “didn’t know what to do” and felt panicked, the affidavit says.
She said she didn’t recall stopping or apologizing after the collision, telling police: “I don’t remember hitting nobody.”
Asked whether she drank any alcohol or used prescription or illicit drugs before the crash, Rockmore told police she had smoked some marijuana around 10 p.m. but “didn’t hit it that many times, because I was like ya know I’m driving, I can’t,” according to the affidavit.
Rockmore is due in court on Aug. 18 for an arraignment, which will be her first opportunity to enter a not-guilty plea in the case.
