Taxi hits 12-year-old during boxing club's group run

A 12-year-old boy was hospitalized Monday night after a taxi hit him as he crossed 14th Avenue SW while running with his teammates.

About 20 kids were running down SW Roxbury Street in reflective vests, warming up before training at White Center Police Activities League Boxing Club.

They say Alex Cruz, nicknamed “Baby Bull,” led them across the intersection at the corner and was hit by the taxi, which quickly took off.

“The kids started running back, screaming, yelling that Baby Bull had been hit by a car,” coach Keith Weir said. “So I took off running after them.”

One of the teenagers lifted Alex and moved him out of the road. Other teens wrote down the cab’s number and even chased it as it drove off.

Weir said one of the first things they teach the kids is to own their mistakes.

“If you did something wrong, man up to it,” he said. “Admit it. This man didn’t show our fighters that at all. Taking off and running.”

KIRO 7 discovered the cab tracked back to Harjeet Sumal. Deputies seized the taxi cab.

Through a translator, Sumal admitted he had been driving in that area. But he said he was on 14th Ave SW the whole time and only crossed Roxbury, never driving down Roxbury and turning left on 14th as this hit-and run-driver did. He said someone saw his taxi instead of the hit-and-run driver’s.

Alex Cruz, the boy who was hit, is a promising young boxer who placed third at nationals in his age and weight class.

His father told KIRO 7 Tuesday night that after he got out of surgery for several breaks in his leg, he was already asking if he could get back to boxing in a couple of months.

King County Sheriff’s spokesperson Cindi West said if the driver had stayed on the scene, he would have likely faced a traffic infraction. Now, she said, once they establish who it was, he will likely be facing a felony hit-and-run charge.