Centreville resident Riaz Ahmed was originally charged with hit-and-run after striking a 33-year-old Centreville woman with his car and then driving away. But last week in Fairfax County General District Court, the charge was reduced and Ahmed was ordered to pay a fine.
The incident occurred March 24, around 2 a.m. Police say the woman was walking home on a gravel shoulder, with traffic, northbound on Pickwick Road near Leland Road, when she was struck by a northbound vehicle. She didn't own a vehicle and was walking home from the Bonefish Grill in Centreville.
IN A MARCH 29 affidavit for a warrant to search Riaz's car for possible evidence against him, Det. Clinton Beach of the police department's Crash Reconstruction Unit explained what happened. He wrote that, around 7:30 a.m. — some 5 1/2 hours after the incident — he was contacted by Officer R. Lehr of the Sully District Police Station.
Beach stated that Lehr had investigated a hit-and-run crash at 2:18 a.m. at 5614 Pickwick Road in Centreville and that the vehicle responsible had not stopped. Ahmed, 25, lives nearby at 5559 Pickwick Road.
The woman was taken to Inova Fair Oaks hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. "At the scene, Officer Lehr located a shoe at the intersection of Leland Road and Pickwick Road," wrote Beach. "He located a second shoe in the area where [the victim] fell to the ground from the impact."
The detective noted that further investigation at the scene led to the off-roadway discovery of a passenger-side mirror from a vehicle. It was identified as belonging to a Honda, since the word "Honda" was written inside the mirror housing.
Then, at Village Square Drive and Village Fountain Place in Fair Lakes — not far from the crash site — a police lieutenant found a black, 2000 Honda Civic coupe missing a passenger-side mirror. Beach wrote that police seized the vehicle as evidence and towed it away.
After identifying Ahmed as the car's registered owner, several police units responded to his home, but no one answered. Later on, in an effort to locate his car, Ahmed contacted the police and Beach spoke with him.
"Riaz stated that he thought he initially struck a deer on his way from Pickwick Road to Cool Fountain Lane," wrote the detective. "He state[d] he was simply taking his girlfriend home because of the amount of glass she had in her hair after the impact.
Police arrested Ahmed that same day, March 24, charging him with hit-and-run. Five days later, they executed the search warrant, seizing a paint sample from the car's passenger side, shattered glass from the interior and the passenger-side, side-view mirror mount.
Ahmed appeared last Tuesday, June 20, in General District Court and, at that time, Judge Stewart Davis reduced the charge against him to failure to notify police about an accident. Davis then found him guilty and fined him $250.