Rewards offered in two hit-run wrecks that injured 2 kids, mom

City officials are offering rewards for tips to help them catch the heartless drivers who mowed down two children and a young mother in separate hit-run incidents Monday night, leaving a 4-year-old dead and a 19-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son critically injured.

In the first incident, a woman driving black Ford Edge hit a 4-year-old boy as he darted into 57th Street near Litchfield in Kingsessing about 6:30 p.m. The impact threw the boy forward onto the road — where the woman kept going and drove over him. The boy died at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia within the hour of severe head injuries.

Capt. John Wilczynski, commander of the Accident Investigation Division, said surveillance video from a nearby store shows the SUV was a recent model, between 2011 and 2014, and has a chrome front, with a custom one-inch chrome lining from front to back. Detectives could see the driver was a black woman. Officials are offering a $20,000 reward for tips leading to the arrest of that driver. Tipsters, call (215) 685-3180.

Police believe the driver saw the child, because she swerved slightly. Still, she could have dodged criminal charges if she'd stopped — unless she was intoxicated or otherwise impaired — because she didn't appear to be speeding and the child darted into the street between parked cars, Wilczynski said.

Instead, she now faces an automatic one-year jail term for fleeing the scene of a fatal wreck, he added.

In the second incident, two men in a newer model white Acura Infinity hit a 19-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son as the pair crossed Mascher Street near Lehigh Avenue. The sedan never slowed as it turned onto Lehigh. The car should have some front-end damage, as investigators found some glass at the scene, Wilczynski said.

Both victims remain in critical condition — the mother at Temple University Hospital, and the toddler at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, Wilczynski said. A $10,000 reward is posted in that case.

"What we really need is some help from the public," Wilczynski said. "There was a lot of people out there. We're just hoping that someone out there can get us some information about either crash."

He urged motorists to be aware of children and other pedestrians in the streets.

"Everybody's got to be aware that this time of year, the little ones are going to be out there, and they're going to run out there (in the road)," Wilczynski said. "Happens every spring and summer. Just exercise caution ... people are responsible to stop."