CLEVELAND, Ohio – Taking advantage of the mild July night, motorcycle enthusiasts Bobby Henry and Brianca Palmer went out for a 2 a.m. ride.
Brianca had just arrived from New York, where she’d left her teenage son, to enjoy a weekend getaway with her new boyfriend. She leaned comfortably against Bobby’s back, as he leisurely wound the bike down Broadway Avenue, a four-lane artery through Slavic Village. Little did they know, two teen drivers were approaching from the opposite direction, their feet slamming the pedals as they raced their parents’ vehicles through traffic.
Neither had a license nor permission to have the cars, which were packed with friends. As the cars rounded a curve, one driver swiped the front of the other car, sending it across the center line at the exact moment Bobby was passing. The crash was immediate.
Bobby’s body hit the front of the vehicle so hard that his glasses were embedded in the windshield, the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office said. The force catapulted Brianca’s body down the road. The drivers initially stopped.
Street cameras captured video of the 17-year-old driver briefly hovering over Bobby’s crumpled body in the street, as if checking for a pulse, before fleeing. He would run home and confess to his mother, who called 911. The driver who caused the collision, a 16-year-old girl, was seen using her sleeve to wipe away evidence of the crash.
She then drove home and fell asleep, the prosecutor’s office said. Bobby Henr.