Suspect in Hit-Run Death of 5-Year-Old Surrenders

A suspected hit-and-run driver sought in connection with the weekend death of a 5-year-old boy surrendered late Monday to authorities.

Police were looking for Reynaldo Chavez Manso, 21, after a 1983 Toyota Camry ran over the boy Sunday and the driver failed to stop.

Manso walked into the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill station with his family at about 10 p.m. He was being held on a $60,000 bail.

He is scheduled to be arraigned today on manslaughter charges at San Fernando Municipal Court.

Manso, who does not have a driver’s license, allegedly struck and killed Salvador Sanchez while the boy was walking across Van Nuys Boulevard with his 11-year-old brother.

The boys were in an unmarked crosswalk, but investigators have not determined who was to blame for the accident, police said.

Manso’s failure to stop has exposed him to a maximum state prison sentence of five years, said Los Angeles Police Det. R.S. Uber.

After the accident, a witness followed the suspected driver of the hit-and-run car to a nearby house. The witness gave authorities the license plate number of the car Manso was driving and later, along with several others witnesses, identified Manso in a photo lineup, police said.

Salvador is survived by nine brothers and sisters and his mother and father. He died on his father’s 40th birthday.

“Who’s to blame?” asked the father, Javier Sanchez. “Maybe us. . . . But [the driver] must pay for what he did. Even if I hit an animal, a dog, I would stop and check if it was OK.”