Search underway for hit-and-run driver who hit child crossing street in Santa Ana

Authorities are searching for the hit-and-run driver who struck an 11-year-old boy crossing the street in Santa Ana in late March. 

The incident occurred on March 29 just after 1:30 p.m. when two children were walking across S. Birch Street from one sidewalk to the other. One child was struck by a black older model Cadillac DeVille traveling southbound on Birch, according to Santa Ana police. 

The suspect never stopped to help the pedestrian, instead continuing to drive southbound. 

The victim was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment on injuries sustained in the collision. 

Witnesses told police that the Cadillac had dark tinted windows, and investigators have determined it has chrome metal rims and chrome trim. 

Surveillance footage shows the victim and his 12-year-old cousin crossing the street suddenly, darting out from behind a parked vehicle on the side of the road just moments before the collision.

The children were walking home from school with their uncle when the incident occurred. Their uncle said that they were startled by a dog that barked at them, which caused the two children to run. 

"The driver left his nephew out there as if they were a piece of trash," the uncle, Samuel Cabanas, said via a Spanish translator during a press conference on Wednesday. "Some of the injuries that the child sustained where scrapes, bumps, bruises on the head, the arm."

Anyone with additional information on the incident is asked to contact detectives at (714) 245-8228.