(Multnomah County Sheriff)
A man who allowed his pickup truck to collide with a nine-year-old girl who was riding her bike in North Portland last Saturday (7/27) has been arrested by the Portland Police Bureau for felony hit-and-run. The collision occurred at 4:24 pm at the intersection of North Bryant and Borthwick in the Piedmont neighborhood.
28-year-old Jerod Brasky was arrested at his home just 12 blocks away from the collision on Sunday after a witness turned his license plate number into authorities.
According to the PPB, the girl (who KPTV has identified as Jayauna Nelson) was riding her bike in the street when Brasky hit her with his 1999 Dodge pickup. “A witness saw Brasky pulling the girls bike out from under the truck then drive away,” a PPB spokesman told BikePortland. She received many scrapes, bruises and road rash, but the PPB says she had no “serious injuries.” Nelson was taken to the hospital but has since been released.
KPTV reported that witnesses said Nelson was “dragged on the pavement.” Here’s more from a witness interviewed by KPTV:
“He’s like, ‘It’s not my fault. I didn’t see her coming. I got to get to work,'” said Sahaune Randle, who heard the crash right outside her house. “So I took my phone out, and took a picture of his license plate.”
I live just a few blocks from this collision so I know the area well. The corner of Borthwick and Bryant is should be a calm neighborhood street. Bryant is an officially designated “neighborhood greenway” as per the Portland Bureau of Transportation. It has speed bumps, sharrows and other treatments designed with the goal of making it a “low-stress, family friendly” place to live and bike.
Reader Tony Tapay says he used to live at this intersection and had repeatedly called PBOT with concerns about traffic safety. “I was doing everything I could to get enforcement for the drivers who ripped through there,” he shared via a comment below, “Nothing ever happened. I can’t even tell you how many times I called the 823-SAFE line. I was told that that at best they’d show up and if no one was speeding in the first 10-15 minutes they were there, they’d leave.”
Tapay adds that he now lives on a neighborhood greenway in southeast Portland and he sees a lot of speeding and dangerous driving there too. He’s tried to get more police presence to write tickets, but says, “Portland’s enforcement for drivers in neighborhoods is non-existent.”