ICE arrests man accused in Fresno hit-and-run that hurt boy

Federal immigration officers took Aman Kumar into custody outside the California Superior Court in Fresno on May 13, after his release from jail drew the hit-and-run case back into the spotlight for Fresno County families.

Police said the 31-year-old man was driving north on Peach Avenue around 8:05 p.m. on April 28 when he hit a 4-year-old boy near Peach and Nevada avenues in east central Fresno. Officers said Kumar drove around stopped traffic in a bike lane, struck the child and fled. The boy had been playing in a backyard while his father and uncle worked nearby, and he reportedly walked through a gate into the roadway. He was rushed to the hospital with major injuries and was expected to survive.

Fresno police later located Kumar and the vehicle hours after the crash. The Fresno County Sheriff’s Department arrested him the next day and charged him with felony hit-and-run causing death or injury, according to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS said Kumar is an undocumented immigrant from India and tied the arrest to what it described as California sanctuary policies.

The sequence has put a sharp local focus on how a criminal case can move from a Fresno neighborhood street to county jail and then into federal immigration custody. ICE said its Fresno office covers Fresno, Madera, Merced, Kings, Mariposa and Tulare counties, giving the agency reach across the central San Joaquin Valley. For Fresno parents, the case centers on a single question with immediate public-safety stakes: how quickly a suspected driver can be identified, arrested and kept from leaving the system after a child is critically hurt.