Inset: Q'Laundra Kadri Hood (CMPD). Background: The area in N.C. where Hood struck and killed a pedestrian in a hit-and-run (Queen City News).
A 28-year-old North Carolina woman will spend a month locked up despite admitting to striking a pedestrian and fleeing the scene. She said she did not call for help because she did not have a license and was "scared" of what might happen to her.
Mecklenburg County Superior Court Judge Reggie E. McKnight on Tuesday sentenced Q'Laundra Kadri Hood to 16 to 29 months after she pleaded guilty to one count each of felony hit-and-run involving serious injury or death and misdemeanor death by vehicle in the death of Lance Andreas Jesus Sotelo, court records show.
However, McKnight suspended the prison term and instead placed Hood on 36 months of supervised probation and ordered her to serve 30 days in jail as special probation.
According to a probable cause affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department responded at 5:47 p.m. on Jan. 14 to the 3300 block of The Plaza near East 36th Street regarding a report of a pedestrian being struck by a vehicle. Upon arriving, first responders found Sotelo severely injured in the roadway. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
Investigators said Sotelo was running southeast across The Plaza when a white Chevrolet Impala with dark-tinted windows ran a red light at East 36th Street and struck him. Police said footage of the crash was captured in real time and the department issued a citywide alert for the Impala, which had damage to its front end, hood and windshield.
At about 1:30 a.m. the following morning, Hood turned herself in at CMPD's Hickory Grove Division.
In a subsequent interview, she told detectives she had been driving after work and saw Sotelo near the side of the road. She said she "did not think he was going to cross," according to the affidavit.
"She stated her light was turning from green to yellow when the pedestrian ran in front of her," the affidavit states. "She admitted striking the pedestrian and acknowledged knowing it was indeed a person. She said she did not stop because she did not have a driver's license and was scared. She said she knew the person was likely to have been seriously injured and that she had a cell phone and did not call 911 or anyone else."
Following the crash, Hood returned home and told her boyfriend's mother what happened. Her boyfriend later returned from work and talked her into turning herself in, according to the affidavit.
Sotelo graduated in 2025 from Queens College in Charlotte, where he ran with the cross-country and track and field teams, according to a report from Queen City News.