Police: Family used Facebook, yearbook to find driver who critically injured skateboarder

RENTON, Wash. — Renton police say a teen who hit a classmate on a skateboard and then drove off is in a King County juvenile detention facility Monday thanks to the victim's friends and family.

Andrew Finnell was skateboarding in his east Renton neighborhood Sunday night when a car struck him from behind.

Andrew is in critical condition at Harborview Medical Center with severe head injuries, and police tell us they would likely still be looking for the person who hit him if it hadn't been for Facebook and a yearbook.

Moments after Andrew was rushed to the hospital, his friends and family launched a search to find the driver who ran him over.  Using Facebook and his own yearbook, Andrew's youngest brother Spencer identified a teenager who he claimed sped away from the scene on Northeast First Place.  Spencer said he spoke with the driver briefly and tried unsuccessfully to get him to stay put.

"They believed they knew who the driver was.  It was perfect -- those little things like that help us out tremendously in hit-and-run investigations because we don't know,” explained Commander Clark Wilcox with the Renton Police Department. “(When) there's no car parts left in the road we have nothing to track it to."

Renton police matched the name to a nearby house, where they found the car and arrested a 16-year-old.  Neighbor Roxanne Hanson was horrified when she heard what happened to Andrew.

"It's just really sad for the neighborhood because we all -- everybody saw those boys,” Roxanne told us, standing just a few feet away from the crash site.

She lives across the street and has watched the three Finnell boys skateboard there for years.  She said this is a tragedy for the boy hit but also for the boy who hit him.

"This poor boy who had probably had his license for who knows how long -- not a year, probably, and he's going to think about this every day of his life."

Police have impounded the car he was driving.  They won't release his name because he is a minor.

Officers believe it was a pure accident -- no speeding or drugs or alcohol involved --  but the boy has a lawyer and so police haven't been able to question him yet.

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