INDIANAPOLIS — Police have arrested the alleged driver in a hit and run crash last month.
Twenty-year-old Ashanti Jones allegedly drove a stolen car into a house on Oliver Avenue on the west side of Indianapolis around 3:20 p.m. on Jan. 27.
Court records say Jones took a silver 2013 Lincoln MKZ without permission from her boyfriend after he fell asleep at the Cloverleaf Apartments on Wilkins Street. She drove north on Mickley Avenue about half-mile away when she failed to make the turn at the "T" intersection with Oliver Avenue. The car hit a Honda Odyssey minivan in the driveway then crashed through the house.
Yolanda Cabrera was sitting on the couch in her living room, holding her 1-year-old daughter, Selena. They were thrown off the coach into a wall. Cabrera suffered a serious cut on her right arm. Her baby had minor injuries. Cabrera's 9-year-old daughter was in the kitchen, not injured, and called 911.
Cabrera watched the people in the car get out in her living room, walk out the front door, and take off, while she was bleeding heavily. A neighbor captured video of the people leaving the scene, which helped lead to the arrest. The video shows Jones and her 3-year-old daughter, and another woman and man leave the house.
Neighbors came to aid Cabrera and put a tourniquet on her arm to slow the bleeding She has relocated to a new home on the south side of Indianapolis but is still traumatized.
"Now I literally can't even sit in my living room without wondering if a car is going to come crashing through this house," Cabrera said with tears in her eyes. "It's just really traumatic. I'm listening to outside sounds of cars because I don't want this to happen again.”
Cabrera still has numbness in her arm and fingers and does not have strength in that dominant hand.
"I can't think of anything that I'm more grateful for than the fact that my children are alive," said Cabrera. "It's crazy. I mean I was holding her in my arms and the glass shattered everywhere and cut me completely open and I had her in my arms."
The court records say data recovered from the car show it was going 92 miles an hour five seconds before impact; 85.5 miles per hour four seconds prior to the crash; 77.7 miles per hour three seconds before the collision; 63.9 miles per hour two seconds before impact; 44.0 miles per hour one second before the crash; and 31.9 miles per hour at impact. The speed limit for the narrow, residential street of Mickley Avenue is 30 miles per hour.
A neighbor chased down Jones as she was leaving the scene with her daughter, who was in the backseat and not in a car seat, in the crash.
"I was not the one driving," Jones says in the video. "They over there. Look. I just got my baby out the car. I'm not going to lie."
"I'm showing this to the police," says the man recording the video. "What's your name?"
"I'm Ashanti."
"Ashanti, are you a kid?"
"Yes I am. I'm 18."
But police say Jones was the driver and is 20 years old.
On Jan. 28, police responded to a report of a stolen vehicle. They spoke with a man, who said Jones took his car the day before without his permission and admitted to crashing the car into a home. He told police Jones texted him and apologized for crashing his car.
Jones confirmed she was driving in the text message to her boyfriend cited in court records.
She wrote, in part, "I'll call you in the morning so we can talk about this. If you want to put me in jail can we wait? I want to see Skylar before I go. Plz don't press charges. You gone have to tell them ppl some and you can tell them it was me...I'm so sorry I lost control of the wheel I couldn't turn I was going too fast and I feel so bad I feel so horrible. I'm going to sleep my head hurt. You mad at me aren't you? I knew I was too drunk."
On Feb. 22, detectives went to Jones' apartment in the 5700 block of Wilkins Street, which is about a half-mile from where the crash happened.
An arrest report says Jones agreed to talk to investigators. According to the arrest report, Jones initially said a man was driving the car when it crashed, but she eventually told investigators she was driving after they showed her the text message she sent to the owner of the car and video evidence.
Jones told police the man let her borrow the car to pick another man up from a grocery store, and she took her 3-year-old daughter and another friend with her. Jones then said her daughter was not in a baby or booster seat but had a seatbelt on.
According to an arrest report, Jones said she had a "heavy foot" when detectives asked why she was going so fast.
Detectives checked the Indiana BMV system, which revealed Jones does not have a valid driver's license.
The house on Oliver Avenue is now almost completely rebuilt. A new yellow sign with an arrow pointing in both directions sits in front of the house, which neighbors says is new. Stop signs with long red reflector bars now stand on both sides of the street on Mickley Avenue.
Jones is held at Marion County Jail for leaving the scene of an accident, auto theft, criminal recklessness committed with a deadly weapon and child restraint system violation.
Jones is scheduled to have her initial hearing Tuesday, Feb. 28 at 1 p.m.