A suspected drink-driver is accused of heartlessly dismissing her victim as “just a homeless person” after she allegedly mowed down a pedestrian, killing her. Ivana Gomez, 32, reportedly rammed her BMW into Kathryn Kipnis, 41, who was not homeless, dragging the woman for more than 70 metres before she was “violently thrown off” the vehicle.
A police officer who witnessed the horrific crash in Miami, Florida, had to drive at speeds exceeding 100 mph to keep up with Gomez as she sped away.
However, the driver was eventually apprehended when she got stuck at a red light, according to police. Gomez, who faces manslaughter and vehicular homicide charges, “spontaneously stated that it was just a homeless person that I hit and it is just an accident,” the crime report revealed.
Police noted that Gomez smelled of alcohol, had red, watery eyes and there was fresh vomit in her car, WSVN reports. She struggled with a field sobriety test and demanded a lawyer, the police report added.
Bodycam footage released this week shows Gomez in handcuffs and without shoes moments after her arrest on the DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide charges in Miami.
However, it does not capture her dismissing the victim as “just a homeless person” – which Gomez denied ever saying when it was raised at her initial court hearing in May, reports The Mirror.
But police continue to allege this, as they prepare a case for Gomez’s next court appearance. They have already released to the media shocking images of the mangled BMW and a gaping, head-shaped hole in the windscreen.
Gomez “hit the victim so hard that the victim’s head went into the vehicle, through the windshield, and some of the victim’s hair got caught on the passenger’s seat belt,” said prosecutor Laura Adams at the May hearing.
Yet at that hearing, in relation to the “homeless person” remark, Gomez told the judge: “Your Honour, I never said that. I did not say that whatsoever. That’s false.”
Ms Kipnis, from Miami, was in fact not homeless and was on her way home after a night out with friends, her father told reporters earlier this year.
Gomez, whose blood level was. 112 – above the US legal limit of .08 – five hours after the crash, remains locked up on a $251,000 (£187,000) bond.