By Police1 Staff
SAN ANTONIO - An San Antonio Police Department officer has been placed on administrative leave after he accidentally hit and killed a toddler who wandered into the street with his police cruiser.
German Alonzo, 2, wandered out of the front of an apartment building into a street and was struck by the cruiser and another car. He died an hour later at a nearby hospital.
SAPD Chief William McManus told the San Antonio Express-News that the officer was reporting back to his substation near 9 p.m. to end his shift just as the boy wandered out of an unlocked apartment. The officer didn’t see the boy, McManus said, but heard something hit his car and made a U-turn.
“It was an unavoidable accident,” McManus told the Express-News. “He is a good officer. ... He is extremely upset by what happened.”