UPDATE 8/16/21: The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries announced that Lafayette Parish assistant district attorney Chris Richard has been booked into the Pointe Coupee Parish Jail. Richard, 64, of Carencro, is facing charges of felony hit-and-run as well as careless operation of a vehicle and negligent injury.

Read More: Attorney Arrested After Fleeing the Scene of Boating Accident | https://999ktdy.com/lafayette-attorney-arrested-after-fleeing-the-scene-of-false-river-boating-crash-injuring-multiple-children/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

ORIGINAL STORY BELOW

According to journalist Kiran Chawla, sources say that a Lafayette Assistant District Attorney was involved in a boating accident in False River over the weekend.

Also, according to those sources, that same Assistant District Attorney may have fled the scene of the accident.

The accident happened on Sunday, August 8th, around 4 pm on False River in Pointe Coupee Parish.

One report on the crash from Tiger Droppings shares eyewitness accounts of two boats traveling in close proximity to each other. Both boats were pulling children on tubes, when one boat (party barge) turned into the path of the other's tube, striking and injuring 2 of the 3 children on that tube. The age range of the children, according to WBRZ, is 8-14 years, with an 8-year-old suffering the worst of the injuries: a broken pelvis. That 8-year-old was airlifted to a hospital because of his injuries; the other child's injuries were considered "minor".

The story on the Unfiltered with Kiran website cites witnesses as saying that the operator of the party barge that hit the children jumped into the water to help some of the children to get onto boats, but then asked someone on a personal watercraft to bring him back to his own boat. The operator of the party barge that struck the children, identified by witnesses as Chris Richard, then left the scene of the accident before authorities arrived.

The story from WBRZ goes on to say that investigators caught up with the operator of the party barge that struck the children 3 hours later at his home near Lafayette and that the operator of the vessel "refused to take a test assessing him for intoxication".

The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Pointe Coupee Sheriff's Office are still investigating this incident.

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