On Friday, Aug. 28, 2020, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged Tyler Scott Gradin, 26, with vehicular assault, felony hit and run and reckless driving for an Aug. 25 incident that injured two children playing in a plastic Barbie Jeep.
A 3-year old girl and a 5-year old boy were riding in a battery-powered kid’s “toy” car on the grassy shoulder of a residential road located near the 19800 block of SE 281st Street in unincorporated Kent.
The King County Sheriff’s Office says that Gradin was driving a maroon pickup eastbound on SE 281st when he veered off the road, struck a mailbox and hit the kids.
The kids were seriously injured, and the 3-year is still in pediatric intensive care, having suffered collapsed lungs, liver injury and a broken pelvis. The 5-year old suffered bruises, abrasions and soft tissue injury, and was released after one night in the hospital.
Prosecutors say the defendant had “stopped on his way home at a convenience store. He later would admit that he bought a pint of vodka and drank it in the parking lot before driving his pick-up truck home.”
The Prosecutor’s Office asked that Gradin be held on $100,000 bail and a judge agreed. His next court appearance is his arraignment, where he’s expected to enter a plea at 9 a.m. on Sept. 10 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
