Man jailed in hit-and-run that critically injured Ferndale woman

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — A 29-year-old Custer man is in jail on $500,000 bail after police said he critically injured a Ferndale woman in a hit-and-run.

Bellingham police said Emma Briceno, 25, a mother of three young children, was badly injured at the intersection of East Chestnut Street and Railroad Avenue.

They said Cory Mezo was driving with a "total indifference" to human life, doing donuts at another intersection before he ran a red light and hit a car just before 2 a.m.

Police say he careened into Briceno as she walked in a marked crosswalk. She flew into the windshield and over the vehicle.

Medics treated her at the scene and she was flown to Harborview Medical Center with life-threatening injuries. She is in critical condition.

Police say Mezo then hit a parked car before his Lincoln sedan came to a stop. Then he took off.

Just before 10 a.m., the suspect vehicle was found by a Western Washington University police officer abandoned in a university parking lot.

Prosecutors said in court two other people admitted to being in the car with him at the time.

At 10:10 a.m. Ferndale police arrested Mezo and booked him into the Whatcom County Jail on vehicular assault, hit-and-run injury, hit-and-run (attended vehicle), hit-and-run (unattended vehicle) and first-degree driving while license suspended.

Mezo is due back in court on December 6.

KIRO