Witness of a Hit-and-Run Gives Chase and Helps in Arrest : Hero: The Moorpark College student was outraged after watching a car strike a 12-year-old boy. Authorities praise his action.

The last thing 12-year-old Chris Kinyoun remembered was stepping off the curb in front of his house to skate across the street with two friends.

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Moorpark College student Sean Lindauer, who was driving nearby with his girlfriend and her 17-month-old daughter Thursday afternoon, saw what happened next and was outraged. As a blue Cadillac hit Chris and sped away, Lindauer floored the accelerator of his truck and gave chase.

“I screeched out of there and started to chase him,” Lindauer said Friday.

After a 10-minute high-speed pursuit through city streets, during which Lindauer managed to attract the attention of a sheriff’s deputy, the 24-year-old man and, by then, more deputies cornered 35-year-old Francisco Ramos of Los Angeles at a red light in Thousand Oaks, Lindauer said.

“We feel terrific that he got involved,” said Craig Smith, a senior deputy with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Ramos was arrested on suspicion of felony hit and run and driving with a suspended license and was released later in the day on $10,000 bond, Smith said. He is scheduled to be arraigned next week, Smith said.

Chris, who suffered a slight skull fracture and two broken collarbones, was released Friday afternoon from Los Robles Medical Center, said the boy’s mother, Kathy Peterson.

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Lindauer said he was feeling pretty good as he met Chris at the boy’s home Friday afternoon.

“It kind of wraps it all up for me, you know,” Lindauer said. “I didn’t expect to see him doing this well.”

It was shortly after 3 p.m. Thursday when Chris strapped on the 3-month-old roller blades the sixth-grader wears every day as he skates to Ladera Elementary School in Thousand Oaks.

Chris was in the crosswalk, a few feet ahead of his friends, as he stepped into the four-lane East Avenida de los Arboles at Calle Castano in front of his house. He had already crossed the westbound lanes when the Cadillac hit him, said Lindauer, who was in the right eastbound lane.

As Lindauer slowed, the other driver barreled past and didn’t hit the brakes until it was too late, Lindauer said.

“(Chris) flew in the air, hit the windshield, rolled over the top of the car and landed face down on the street,” he said. Both Lindauer and his girlfriend, 19-year-old Jennifer Hambright of Simi Valley, said Chris looked up just before he was hit.

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“He went to turn around, but he knew he was going to get hit,” she said.

Once Lindauer saw that the other driver had no intention of stopping, the chase was on. “As soon as he realized I was chasing him, he got on the gas,” he said.

The other car led Lindauer, Hambright and her daughter, Ariel, through residential streets on and around Avenida de los Arboles, hitting 65 m.p.h. on straightaways, Lindauer said. “He was screeching around, getting sideways and making a ruckus,” Lindauer said.

As Lindauer followed, Hambright honked the horn and screamed, trying to get someone’s attention, she said. As they passed a westbound sheriff’s deputy, Hambright leaned across Lindauer to yell out the window.

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But she inadvertently struck the steering wheel, sending Lindauer’s truck careening sideways in a skid toward the deputy’s car, Lindauer said. However, he recovered and caught up with the Cadillac at Avenida de las Plantas, where sheriff’s deputies converged and arrested the uninsured motorist without incident, Smith said.

“I’d so something like this again,” Lindauer said, though he acknowledged the danger. “I guess the only thing I’d wish for next time is that my girlfriend and her baby wouldn’t be in the car.”

On Friday, Chris was at home recuperating as four of his friends played nearby. “Every kid in the neighborhood keeps stopping by,” the 34-year-old Peterson said. “It sounds like we’re having a party.”

Chris, who said he was feeling fine, could return to school by March 5.

And what did Chris think of the man who chased down Ramos? “He’s nice,” he said. “Real nice.”