UPDATED: Grand Prairie teacher turned herself in for hit-and-run of 6-year-old

by Robert Wilonsky

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She was charged with manslaughter and failure to stop and render aid.

GRAND PRAIRIE — The death of 6-year-old John Paul Raidy, killed in front of his mother and little sister by a hit-and-run driver Thursday night in Grand Prairie, made national and international news in the days following the incident. Grand Prairie police revealed that Tammy Lowe — a Texas-history teacher at John Adams Middle School, which isn’t far from the scene of the accident — turned herself in this morning.

Says Eric Hansen, in the department’s traffic division, “She walked through the door with her husband” shortly before noon today. He can’t say much else, except that “she was remorseful” after she asked to speak with officers.

Records show she was booked into jail at 12:55 p.m.

Hansen says Lowe is being charged with injury to a child and failure to stop and render air.

Grand Prairie police have video from Dallas County that shows the incident at North Carrier Parkway and Holiday Hills Drive.

“The camera is facing right toward the road, and you can see the car go down the street and see it stop,” said Det. Lyle Gensler, a spokesman for the Grand Prairie Police Department. What the video doesn’t show, he says, is whether the car carried the 6-year-old on its hood for 100 yards, as has been reported by several local TV outlets.

“But we do know where the point of impact was, and we do know based on the new video where the vehicle stopped, and where [s]he stopped is where we found the 6-year-old boy,” he says.

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UPDATE: At a press conference with Grand Prairie police, Sam Buchmeyer, director of communications for the Grand Prairie Independent School District, said Tammy Lowe had been with the school district since the 1996-’97 school year. But she resigned this morning. Said Buchmeyer, she walked into the principal’s office at Adams Middle School with a handwritten resignation letter, then left the campus. In the letter, Buchmeyer said, she did not say anything about her involvement in the accident.

“But given her behavior in the last couple of days,” he said, the school’s principal believed Adams’ resource officer “should do a wellness check” on Lowe. But now she’s in custody, say Grand Prairie officers, and in the process of being interviewed about the events of last week.

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UPDATE x2: Det. Lyle Gensler of the Grand Prairie Police Department says one of the charges has been altered — from injury to a child to manslaughter. The other — failure to render aid, also a felony — will stand for now. “There are other charges that may be added as we work through the case,” says Gensler.

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UPDATE x3: Lowe was charged with manslaughter and failure to stop and render aid, and her bond is $200,000.

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UPDATE x4: Her bond was reduced to $25,000.

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