Police and family members are speaking out to ask for the community's help in finding a hit-and-run driver who fled the scene of a fatal crash in northwest Miami-Dade earlier this month.
Miami-Dade detectives and the family of Christopher Lopez held a family plea Thursday morning to seek answers from the public in the April 19 crash that left the 23-year-old dead.
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WATCH HERE"Whoever has killed my brother, you may have taken his life, but I will spend the rest of my life looking for you," brother Alexander Lopez said.
The crash happened around 12:35 a.m. when a red 2015 Dodge Charger Hel-Cat rear-ended a Toyota Sienna while traveling at a high rate of speed near the intersection of Northwest 119th Street and 22nd Avenue.
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Six of Lopez's friends who were in the Sienna were also hospitalized but survived. Police said they were returning from a trip to Sarasota.
Police said the driver of the Dodge fled the scene, leaving the car behind.
On Thursday, while speaking in Spanish, Lopez's mother, Lesbia Laguna, called the driver a "coward" and said the person "doesn't have a heart."
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The family is hoping people who were on scene that day can provide information to lead to the arrest of the driver.
"They lack empathy, they lack something. They were probably afraid, they probably didn't know what they wanted to do at the time, didn't know what they caused," Alexander Lopez said. "It breaks me, it makes my family angry. We don't even know who that is, we didn't even know the person who did this."
Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
