Search for hit-and-run driver that killed 8-year-old Jersey City boy

JERSEY CITY (WABC) -- A boy has died after being struck by a hit and run driver in Jersey City on Sunday night.

It is believed that two cars were involved in a fender bender that sent one of the vehicles careening into the boy. That driver stayed at the scene, but the driver of the other car involved in the accident fled.

They sang hymns on Bostwick Avenue Monday night and prayed, and they cried at the loss of a child who had talent and smarts and all the promise of youth. Jermaine Woodward was 8 years old and had not yet found anything he couldn't do.

"Going into the third grade, straight A's, teacher's pet, honest, I mean why?" said Jermaine Woodward, Sr., the victim's father.

Jermaine was about to cross Bostwick Avenue Sunday, standing in the bike lane, according to his father, when a car veered into the bike lane and hit him. The driver sped away, and Jermaine was hit by a second car.

"They're cowards, that's a coward because you should have stopped, that's a child, he was a loved child in this neighborhood," said Mary Wooding, the victim's grandmother.

They are driving extra carefully down Bostwick now and slowly maybe because of what happened there Sunday. But normally, the residents are so afraid of how fast people drive on Bostwick that they got together just recently and put together a petition to have the city install speed bumps, but there are none. Instead, the city put down a bike lane on an already narrow road, and that didn't slow people down one bit.

"There's a school right down the block, there's a library right up the block, and another school up the block, there's a bunch of kids around here," Woodward Sr. said.

The anguish was so profound; Jermaine's mother was unable to summon the words. The son she doted on and loved was struck down by a man who didn't even bother to acknowledge him.

"He gave my grandson less respect than a dog. Ran him over, hit him and left," said Orlando Barker, the victim's grandfather.

So far, No one has been charged.