Chapel Hill Police Make Arrest in Pedestrian Hit and Run

Chapel Hill Police have made an arrest in a hit and run from late October.

30-year-old Tyson Kim was extradited to Chapel Hill on Wednesday in connection with felony charges, according to police records.

Chapel Hill Police Lt. Josh Mecimore says the charges stem from a report on October 25 near the Eastgate Shopping Center.

“Officers arrived and the fire department arrived and found a person who had been hit by a vehicle, possibly run over by a vehicle,” Mecimore says, “no life-threatening injuries but was certainly injured and was subsequently taken to the emergency room.”

Mecimore says police were able to quickly identify Kim as a suspect and get a description of the vehicle he had been driving.

Mecimore adds the victim had been a passenger in Kim’s vehicle before being struck.

“The passenger decided to get out of the car, after some sort of issue between the two,” Mecimore says. “He got out and the driver of the vehicle, Mr. Kim, subsequently ran him over or ran into him at the very least with the vehicle.

“And so [Kim] was charged with assault inflicting bodily injury, hit and run with injury and then driving while his license was revoked.”

Mecimore says the incident that led to the victim exiting the vehicle was the passenger attempting to intervene in an argument between Kim and a female passenger.

The assault inflicting bodily injury and hit and run with injury are both felony charges.

Mecimore says authorities were able to identify that Kim had fled the state. South Carolina law enforcement officials arrested Kim after he was stopped in the Palmetto State in early November.

Kim was taken to Orange County Jail under a $50,000 secured bond and was scheduled to make his first court appearance on Thursday afternoon.