Charges: Driver accelerated before fatally hitting man with vehicle
Police investigate after three people were injured in a stabbing and crash Sunday in Minneapolis. (FOX 9)
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A 40-year-old Minneapolis man has been charged after he allegedly intentionally hit a man with his vehicle, killing him.
Derrick Lemar Forest is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Bertrand Romero Davis, 48, of Rochester. He faces up to 40 years in prison.
Derrick Lemar Forest is charged with second-degree murder. (Hennepin County Sheriff's Office / FOX 9)
According to the criminal complaint, police responded to a crash involving a pedestrian at 510 8th Street South in Minneapolis. When police arrived they found a man, identified as Davis, lying on the ground between a vehicle and brick wall. Near the crash scene, police found the driver, identified as Forest, who was suffering from a stab wound on his back. Crews took both men to the hospital. The man struck by the vehicle later passed away.
One witness told police after Forest hit the man, he got out of the vehicle and then stomped on the man's head.
In an interview with police, Forest said a man he did not know opened his vehicle's door and started choking and stabbing him. Forest, however, denied he drove at the man intentionally and accelerated before the crash.
Surveillance video did not capture the stabbing or Forest allegedly stomping on the man's head, but according to the complaint, it showed Forest driving at the man and accelerating. The force of the crash knocked the man into a brick wall.
Forest is in custody at the Hennepin County Jail.