TAMPA (FOX 13) -
Tampa police are searching for the driver of a deadly hit and run accident. A man was hit while crossing Hillsborough Avenue Saturday morning, and the driver never stopped. Now the victim's friends want to know why.
"I think the hardest part was when we had to identify the body," said his friend and roommate Kimarys Tejada.
Omar Jeter died Saturday morning, walking home to get ready for his a.m. shift at a donut shop.
That's when it happened. He was killed by a hit and run driver, just across the street from his apartment complex.
Jeter was crossing Hillsborough Avenue near Lincoln. The car that hit him briefly slowed down before taking off. Several others drove right by his body without calling for help.
"God knows when somebody finally called an ambulance. He could have been alive. They said he died on scene, but they didn't say it was instant. Maybe he laid on the floor for hours," Tejada wondered.
"For whatever reason, this person left the scene of a crime. That itself is a crime. Had they stuck around and nothing else was going on, it wouldn't even have been a crime," said Andrea Davis, spokeswoman with the Tampa Police Department.
In fact, Jeter was technically at fault for jaywalking. The nearest cross walk is about a hundred yards away from his apartment complex, but his roommate says when traffic isn't bad he would cut across the road to get home quicker. He almost made it Saturday morning, but it was dark and no one stopped to help.
"He was just laying there on the floor for god knows how long," Tejada said.
Police hope someone will tip them off, perhaps an auto body shop asked to repair damage since Saturday morning.
"We do believe there's some extensive front-end damage and some windshield damage," Davis said.
Jeter's roommate has known him since they went to culinary school together. She hopes the driver will come forward to ease the grief of his mother.
"I think you should just turn yourself in for the sake of his mom so that she can let it go," Tejada said.
