Protesters, most of whom belong to the Ethiopian community, blocked the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv on Monday as part of a demonstration against authorities due to their handling of a hit-and-run which killed a young Ethiopian boy three and a half months ago.
The protestors accused authorities of racism and of not taking the case because it involved an Ethiopian victim.
Rafael Adana, 4, died days after being critically injured in a hit-and-run in Netanya a few months ago. The vehicle that hit him fled the scene of the accident, and the next morning the police arrested Dr. Heidi Fessler and her mother Emma Carroll on suspicion of involvement in the accident.
Following a brief investigation, police decided not to charge the driver, Carroll, with killing Adana and she was instead charged with the minor crime of neglect.
The decision sparked outrage from Adana’s family and the Ethiopian community.
"We were told by the prosecutor's office that they will not charge the driver with murder, but perhaps with negligence, and even that is not certain, since there is no evidence to prove she noticed that she hit him,” said attorney Roni Aloni Sedovnik, who represents the family.
"You can run over a person and say I didn't see it?"
A flawed investigation
Since the tragic incident occurred, family members received inaccurate details about the accident and its investigation from police and media for almost a month and a half.
Adana died nine days after the accident, but only a day after the accident an article was published stating that he had been killed.
At one point the child’s family members were given a document which testified that the driver was the 56-year-old doctor, Fessler, but they were told verbally by police that the driver was in fact 80 years old.
Despite the fact that the accident occurred in broad daylight on a main street in Netanya, in an area with a network of cameras on the road and in nearby houses, the police claim that there are no clear photographs that show what happened.
“The child’s grandfather was the only person present at the accident, and yet they took testimony only two months after the accident and only at my request," Sedovnik stated.
At a meeting with the prosecutor's office, the family was informed that charges would not be filed against the driver since she had no criminal traffic record.
The family opened their own investigation into the driver and discovered that in 2012 she sped through a red light into the middle of an intersection, hitting and seriously injuring a motorcycle driver.
Her only legal punishment was a three-month license suspension, which was reduced to a mere 45 days of suspension after an appeal.
"Even if they decide to file an indictment for negligence, in my experience with fatal hit-and-run accidents, the offenders received only six to eight months in prison,” Sedovnik said.
“The woman hit Rafael, didn't even slow down and just kept going , despite the fact that she testified that she felt stuck on something. If she felt that she had hit someone, why didn't she stop?"
Many believe that the investigation stems from racism.
"The injustice repeats itself, especially when it comes to the color of our skin. In all cases where young Ethiopians were beaten by the police, they said that there was no documentation,” claimed Likud MK Tsega Melaku.
"This is a four-year-old boy, born in the wrong community and with the wrong color skin. He is a child of Israeli society. A child was killed and the result is tragic, we will continue the fight until the solution is found," she added.