Moments after a court hearing for the driver accused of fatally striking her 12-year-old son, the boy’s mother burst into the courtroom Tuesday, shouting that the defendant was a killer.

“This was homicide, not an accident,” Martina Suarez said after the proceeding. “I want people to understand that this person destroyed my entire life.”

Her son, Christofer Suarez, had been walking to school near East Owens Avenue and North 21st Street on Friday morning when police said he stepped off the sidewalk to cross the street before he was struck by an SUV and thrown into a fence. He spent three days in the hospital and died on Monday.

Suarez was a student at Smith Middle School, located just up the street from where the crash occurred.

Police identified the driver as 27-year-old Oh’Ryan Brooks

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