Man Posts Reward in Case of Boy Hit by Brick

A San Diego County man has offered a reward of at least $3,500 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who threw a brick from a Huntington Beach freeway overpass Wednesday, critically injuring the 5-year-old passenger of a pickup truck below.

Thomas Haggerty said he offered the reward after hearing on a radio news program about the injuries suffered by Bryan Donis of Laguna Niguel.

“It just made me sick, and then it made me mad, and then it made me feel helpless,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I started the reward.”

Haggerty, a 50-year-old retired physician and military reserve colonel, has a 2-year-old grandson and said he identified with Bryan’s parents, Juan and Rayna Donis.

“I just put myself in the position of those poor people,” he said. “It’s just such a senseless tragedy.”

Haggerty said he put $2,000 into the reward fund and contacted friends and relatives, who offered money to increase the reward.

The California Highway Patrol would help administer the reward, he said.

Bryan was riding with his parents south on the San Diego Freeway near the McFadden Avenue overpass when a five-pound paving brick smashed through the windshield, fracturing the child’s skull in at least two places and breaking his mother’s arm.

Bryan remained in critical but stable condition Sunday at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the California Highway Patrol at (714) 892-4426.