MIAMI – Charges have been upgraded for the driver arrested in connection with a fatal hit-and-run crash which occurred last month in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, Local 10 News learned Wednesday.
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According to an arrest report from the Miami Police Department, Ivana Gomez, 32, is now facing charges of DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide/reckless manner in connection with the May 30 crash.
She initially was only charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving death and resisting an officer without violence.
Police said Gomez was behind the wheel of a 2019 BMW 330i just before 1:15 a.m. that morning when she struck 41-year-old Katherine Kipnis in the area of Southwest 21st Avenue and Seventh Street.
“When she struck Ms. Kipnis, she 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 seatbelt of the defendant’s vehicle,” a prosecutor said in bond court after Gomez’s arrest.
According to the arrest report, Gomez was speeding westbound on Southwest Seventh Street when an officer spotted her.
Police said the officer accelerated to catch up with the car, and then witnessed the hit-and-run crash.
According to the report, the officer activated the police lights and sirens on his vehicle, but Gomez failed to stop.
Police said she eventually stopped at a red light because two other vehicles were in front of her.
According to the report, the officer approached the driver’s side door of Gomez’s car and immediately smelled a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from Gomez’s breath.
Police said she also had bloodshot, watery eyes.
Police said Gomez refused to submit to a field sobriety test and requested an attorney.
According to the report, at one point, she spontaneously said, “it was just a homeless person that I hit and it is just an accident,” but in bond court Gomez claimed that she “never said that.”
While she refused to submit to a field sobriety test, a blood sample was taken and police obtained the toxicology report Monday, which showed she had a blood-alcohol content level of 0.162 and 0.159 percent about 2 hours and 30 minutes after the crash, the report stated.
The blood-alcohol limit in Florida is 0.08 percent.
Kipnis’ father, Daniel Kipnis, spoke to Local 10 News by phone shortly after learning of her death.
“My daughter was vivacious, lovable. Everyone really liked her. She was tough, but in a good way,” he said. “I just think back, I spoke to her last night at 6 o’clock when she told me, ‘I love you, Dad.’ That’s the last thing she said to me.”
As of Wednesday morning, Gomez remained at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center where her total bond was listed in online jail records as “to be set.”