Last week, 54-year-old Ralph Myron Roane of Dundalk was riding a bike a couple blocks south of Collington Square Park when he was struck and killed by a truck. The driver fled the scene.
Police later identified the driver as Angelo Laprade, an employee of the city’s Department of Public Works, who was driving one of the city’s vacuum trucks at the time of the accident. The cause of the collision was initially attributed to pedestrian error — but there is obviously absolutely no excuse for leaving the scene of an accident during which someone has been grievously injured.
There have been a number of hit-and-run accidents this summer, including one that killed a 3-year-old. Meanwhile, Baltimore’s most famous hit-and-run perpetrator, former Episcopal bishop Heather Cook, is serving a 7-year sentence for her role in the death of a Roland Park cyclist in 2014.
How does anyone know this collision was due to pedestrian error? The victim was riding a bicycle and the city investigators couldn’t even figure that out. Dead people never have the opportunity to tell their side of the story.