Suffolk County Police last night arrested a West Babylon woman for driving while intoxicated with a child in the vehicle after she fled the scene of a motor vehicle crash in Wyandanch earlier in the day.
Tasena Jennings was driving a 1999 Lincoln Navigator northbound on N. 20th Street when the vehicle struck an occupied, parked 2003 GMC, causing the GMC to strike a pedestrian in front of 127 N. 20th St. at 7:10 p.m. Jennings then fled the scene.
Jayvon Smith, 19, of Wyandanch, who was inside the GMC, was not injured. The pedestrian, Cyasia Forney-Gaddis, 19, of Bellport, was transported to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip for treatment of minor injuries.
Police located Jennings on Conklin Avenue in Wyandanch at 8:02 p.m. and determined she had been driving with a 4-year-old boy in the vehicle at the time of the crash. Neither Jennings nor the child was injured, and the boy was released into the custody of a family member.
Jennings, 33, of 160 Woodrow Parkway, was charged with Driving While Intoxicated, Aggravated Driving While Intoxicated with a Child Passenger 15 Years or Younger (Leandra’s Law), Endangering the Welfare of a Child, Leaving the Scene of an Accident with Injury, and two counts of Criminal Contempt 2nd Degree.
Jennings is scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip on November 17.
A criminal charge is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
Authority: Geraldine Hart, Commissioner 19-641850
Suffolk County Police Department RC/0330
