Berkeley man charged with hit-and-run of father, child
He'Sheem Courtney was driving on a suspended license and had just been charged with a DUI case weeks earlier, according to court papers.
A Berkeley man with a long history of DUIs drove away after hitting a father with his 5-year-old daughter in a crosswalk last month, according to court papers.
This week, he was charged with a new felony case after Berkeley police arrested him at his home.
According to BPD, 29-year-old He'Sheem Courtney was driving on a suspended license when he struck the father and daughter while turning right from Ashby Avenue onto Sacramento Street shortly before 8 p.m. on June 22.
The father fell backward onto the pavement with his daughter and said the driver ran over his foot. (He declined medical transport by BFD.)
Berkeley police tracked down the driver with the help of their Flock camera system, which uses license plate data to help solve crimes.
The Alameda County district attorney's office charged Courtney this week with leaving the crash scene, which is listed as a felony.
He was also charged with two misdemeanors, driving on a suspended license due to a prior DUI conviction and disobeying a court order.
Courtney's bail was set at $10,000.
He has since been released from custody with orders from the judge not to drive or drink alcohol, according to court papers.
He was also ordered to enroll in GPS monitoring of his location and was set to enter a plea Friday morning. His next court date was not immediately available.
It wasn't his first offense
According to records online, Courtney is from Berkeley and went to Berkeley High and Berkeley City College, where he focused on biotechnology.
But he appears to have struggled over the years, racking up a slew of DUI arrests in the Bay Area dating back to 2019.
His most recent DUI case was on May 30, about three weeks before the hit-and-run, when the DA's office charged him with two misdemeanors, including an allegation of excessive blood alcohol, according to charging papers.
Those charges stemmed from an incident about a year earlier, when UCPD pulled him over at Shattuck Avenue and Channing Way after seeing him weaving in traffic and failing to come to a complete stop, according to charging papers.
That night, June 2, 2024, Courtney admitted he had been drinking at Kip's Bar and Grill near campus, police wrote.
His blood alcohol level registered at 0.211%, well above the 0.08% limit, during a preliminary screening that night, UCPD wrote.
At the time of that stop, Courtney was already on probation for DUI and had a suspended license because of it, according to charging papers.
On May 30, Judge Roz Silvaggio released him in that case on his own recognizance and ordered him not to drink alcohol or drive "unless licensed and insured."
The new hit-and-run case came 23 days later.
Read more about traffic safety in Berkeley.
In 2021, the CHP arrested Courtney in Berkeley after seeing him blow a stop sign and red light in the Southside neighborhood near UC Berkeley, according to court papers.
Courtney was cooperative and pulled over when officers stopped him, but the CHP noted that he repeatedly began driving in reverse during the stop before finally putting his car in park.
Less than two years later, the CHP pulled him over again after seeing him weaving and running a red light near Powell Street and I-80, according to court papers.
Courtney's license was also suspended at that time, the CHP noted.
