Kirkland police are investigating the death of a 3-year-old boy who was hit by a vehicle in a Kirkland grocery parking lot.
The accident took place on April 25 in a parking area situated between a McDonald’s and Safeway location in the Juanita neighborhood.
At about 12:11 p.m., police were notified of a vehicle pedestrian accident at 100th Ave Northeast. Fire, medic and police responders arrived and CPR was performed on the small child. They were unsuccessful in their attempts to revive the child, said Lt. Rob Saloum with the Kirkland Police Department (KPD).
The family was parked when the child got into the parking lot. But it wasn’t yet known how the child ended up in the middle of the lot’s traffic flow.
Many other details were unclear, as investigators had half the Safeway parking lot closed off as of 2 p.m. Thursday. Nearby shoppers — many of them being mothers with young children — attempted to conduct their shopping errands.
What Kirkland police did uncover was that the mother was nearby when the slow-speed accident took place and had another child with her when the accident happened. There was a language barrier, however. The mother speaks Portuguese.
The driver who allegedly struck the child was cooperating with the investigation. Saloum said the driver described feeling something with their vehicle, hearing somebody and then stopping their car.
Saloum would not speculate on whether the mother of the child was distracted during the accident, but did say parking lots can be busy and that others should be careful.
“It just takes a moment for something like this to happen,” Saloum said, warning that parking lots, although appearing safe, can be dangerous.
“This was a slow-speed accident — it wasn’t like someone was pulling through quickly,” Saloum said. “It just takes literally a half second for someone to step out…you just have to be diligent. You have to be careful.”
This story originally appeared in the Kirkland Reporter, a sibling paper to the Herald.
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