Teen dies after thrown from bed of truck. Kansas City police are looking for answers
A teenager was riding in the bed of a pickup truck when he was thrown from the vehicle near a Kansas City park in mid-July, police said.
But police were not notified of his death until a week later. Now, they’re looking for help in determining what happened in the fatal crash.
Gabriel Valdez, 19, of Independence, was taken to the hospital in a private vehicle after he was injured about 2:30 a.m. on July 23 at Mark L. McHenry Park near the intersection of Old Tiffany Springs Road and North Childress Avenue, Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department, said in an email.
“[V]aldez was riding in the back of a pick-up truck about 3 a.m. July 23 ... when he was ejected. No one ever called police. Someone dropped him off at the hospital,” police said Monday on Twitter.
Valdez died at the hospital later that day.
Police were not notified until Friday, July 31, more than a week after Valdez’s death, Becchina said.
The crash is under investigation. Police are asking that anyone who witnessed the crash or was in the area at the time call Detective Richardson at 816-482-8192.
