PARMA, Ohio — Just when Shalonte Maddox thinks she can take a breath, more unfolds in her chase for justice.
RELATED: 'You hit my son and left him there': 2-year-old boy, mother injured in alleged hit-skip
Maddox and her 2-year-old son Genesis were leaving a Parma Marc's on March 21. Surveillance footage shows the pair was about halfway through a crosswalk before a vehicle struck them.
Maddox walked away with a few bumps and bruises, but her son was left lying in the middle of the road with his forehead cut open and a broken arm.
"It's not fair to him to have to now be a young black male growing up with a scar across his head and everybody wondering what happened to you. He forever has to tell this story," Maddox told me Wednesday.
The driver who hit Maddox and her son took off.
RELATED: 88-year-old driver under investigation for allegedly hitting Parma mom and toddler
A then-unidentified 88-year-old man was under investigation as the alleged driver of the car.
Although the crime happened in Parma, the Parma Police Department handed the case off to Parma Heights.
"Due to the man’s family connection to a civilian employee of the Parma Police Department, the investigation has been turned over to the Parma Heights Police Department to prevent a conflict of interest. Parma Heights Police will take over the investigation and pursue applicable criminal charges," the Parma Police Department previously shared.
RELATED: 88-year-old facing 6 charges in connection to hit-skip that injured 2-year-old
The case was presented to a grand jury on Tuesday, and George Balasko of Parma was charged with the following:
- Two counts of vehicular assault, felonies of the fourth degree
- Two counts of failure to stop after an accident, felonies of the fifth degree
- Two counts of failure to stop after a nonpublic road accident, felonies of the fifth degree.
Balasko is the father of a civilian employee at the Parma Police Department.
According to the agency, Balasko's son, who is also named George Balasko, primarily serves as the Facility Manager as well as the Radio System Administrator. He is the Commander of the Parma Auxiliary Unit, too.
"The Auxiliary unit currently has 17 volunteer auxiliary officers who assist with public safety duties. George Balasko is not a sworn, OPOTA, certified police officer; he is a civilian employee," a Parma Police Department spokesperson told me. "This unfortunate incident involving his father has been difficult for George."
With this indictment, Maddox said she feels even more sorrow as the person who is accused of driving into her and her son is elderly.
"In my spirit, I wanted to believe that it wasn't him actually driving, but now that it has been confirmed that it is him driving, I feel sad," Maddox shared. "The the law is the law and no matter his age, his age shouldn't define who he is and any connection to the Commander of the Auxiliary Unit — it's still a crime."
She plans to show up to every court appearance of Balasko's as a reminder to him of who she is.
"You hurt my feelings with this one. I need him to know he hurt my feelings," Maddox stated. "You could have killed my son."
Her journey for justice doesn't end in the courtroom, though. She now wants to change the law.
Ohio law does not currently allow for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to require additional testing of individuals based on age.
However, lawmakers like Representative Bernie Willis (R-Springfield) are looking to tweak the law so there is additional testing for elderly drivers.
"We kind of came to that realization after working with the Department of Public Safety on a related but separate issue that has to do with school bus safety and an incident that happened here where a person from outside the country with a questionable license had hit one of those school buses and it overturned and the child was killed," Willis explained.
Because of that tragedy, Willis said it forced some tough conversations about how a person obtains and maintains their driver's license, especially if they're in a "special category."
"This person that you're talking about, an 88-year-old gentleman who has potentially forgotten a lot of maybe what they learned about driving in the past, and maybe has gotten to the point where their physical dexterity with their hands and their feet and their motions and their reaction times and things get less," Willis said. "I believe at this point we're going to come up with some legislation that will drive us to special categories that we will fall into, whether they are by age, whether they are by previous experience, whether they are by the country that are going to require more experience."
Willis said what that may look like is this "special category" individual receiving additional time with a registered instructor and potentially more time with a licensed driver to "make sure that you're doing the right things."
"We have a problem when we get to the testing portion that it is another one of those, I think, holes in the law," Willis said.
"Why do you think it's taken so long to get to this point?," I asked Willis.
"I do not know. My guess is this: Our driving environment has gotten exponentially more dangerous for lots of reasons because of distracted driving, because of the things that people have begun to rely on in their cars that might degrade their actual ability to drive in bad situations," Willis explained. "We're starting to see more of these things come to fruition in bad ways."
As Willis brainstorms the right way to approach legislation of this type, he's thinking anyone 70 and older should be re-evaluated for driving at the time of their license renewal and that those drivers should have to take additional testing no more than every four years.
He's also considering, for across-the-board drivers, that once a driver's test is failed, individuals will not be able to retake the exam as quickly as current BMV standards allow.
"Over this next, I would say six months, we'll have some of those rules that we talked about," Willis said. "We had some good ideas of things that we thought needed to be changed, and we're kind of going to meet in the middle and figure out what we can do to best serve folks on the road and keep us as safe as we can."
Maddox said she's hopeful to see a change in who is allowed to drive in the near future.
We'll follow through.
