Rape suspect fleeing police kills woman at Hyattsville bus stop
A woman waiting for a bus in Chillum was killed when a suspect fleeing a Hyattsville traffic stop hit her near East-West Highway and 23rd Avenue.
A Hyattsville City Police Department officer tried to stop a Lincoln sedan in Chillum, and the driver briefly complied before fleeing westbound on East-West Highway. Within moments, the car crossed near 23rd Avenue, hit the shoulder and struck Esmeralda Montoya-Perez, a 33-year-old Riverdale mother waiting for a bus on her way home.
Montoya-Perez was pronounced dead at the scene on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, at about 10:15 p.m. The officer had called off the pursuit after a short distance, but the crash still unfolded in one of Prince George’s County’s busiest corridors, where people waiting for buses have little protection from a vehicle leaving the roadway at speed.
Police identified the driver as Warren Leonard, 23, of Washington, D.C. They said he had an outstanding warrant for second-degree rape and was carrying a handgun with an extended magazine when the crash happened. Leonard was arrested at the scene and taken to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. Body-camera footage later showed him lying on his overturned car with his hands up as officers approached, and a dispatcher can be heard saying, “We got a fatal.”
The Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s Independent Investigations Division said it concluded its review on July 3, 2025, and announced on July 14 that the officer did not commit a crime under Maryland law. The review focused on the officer’s conduct, not any criminal culpability by Leonard.
For Montoya-Perez’s family, the loss was immediate and devastating. Relatives said she was the mother of two children, an 8-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old, and family members said her daughter had been waiting at home for her mother. Friends remembered Montoya-Perez as a standout softball player, a familiar figure whose life was cut short at a bus stop in Chillum.
The crash also added to mounting scrutiny of police pursuit policies in Prince George’s County, after investigators later noted that multiple deadly chase-related incidents had already left bystanders dead in the county within a month. For everyday riders along East-West Highway, the case is now a stark measure of whether pursuit rules, suspect-apprehension tactics and bus-stop safety protections are strong enough to keep the public out of the line of fire.
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