Woman dies after being hit in front of her kids by HPD unit transporting suspect

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A woman has been pronounced dead after being hit by a Houston Police Department cruiser as she was crossing the street with three of her children in northwest Houston.

The incident happened Thursday at about 10 p.m. on Antoine Drive near Golden Forest.

Houston police said a marked HPD unit with two officers was traveling southbound on Anotoine to transport a narcotics suspect who had been detained earlier in the evening.

Family members identified the victim as 41-year-old Desire Pool, a mother of four.

"She would have two, three, four jobs, she don't care," her mother, Patricia Barnes, said. "She'd do whatever she could to take care of her family."

"After it hit my mom, the car stopped and I saw her body fly up in the air and she went to the other side of the street," Jalen Gary, her 18-year-old son who saw her get hit, said.

Neighbors came running.

"It sounded like somebody popped the curb... and then you heard like a lot of screaming,' Tremaine Tillotson said. "It almost sounded like somebody was being abducted."

"It was just a death-curdling scream, you hear it. We were afraid to even go further," his sister, Dominique Tillotson, said.

"She's seeing police officers surrounding her," Gary said. "I'm trying to make sure she sees her son, so she sees one of her family members is right there with her."

A preliminary HPD investigation shows the officer wasn't speeding, and the victim was on the road, not in a crosswalk.

Following standard procedure, HPD's internal affairs division will investigate the deadly crash.

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