A 44-year-old Oakland Park man is facing DUI charges in an April crash that killed a 6-year-old girl, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said Friday.
Michael Joseph McKenna, a retired U.S. Army captain, was arrested earlier this month on counts of DUI manslaughter, DUI property damage and DUI personal injury. He has since been released on bond, court records show.
McKenna is accused of driving a 2020 Nissan Sentra about 7:30 p.m. on April 2 with a blood-alcohol concentration of at least .297, over three times the legal limit, when he crashed into another driver in the intersection of Northwest 31st Avenue and Northwest 35th Street in Oakland Park, according to a probable cause affidavit.
As McKenna drove south on Northwest 31st Avenue near the intersection, the driver of a 2011 Ford F-150 and the 6-year-old passenger were traveling north on the same road, approaching the intersection, the Sheriff’s Office said.
McKenna made a left turn into the truck’s path, and the truck crashed into a traffic pole before coming to a stop, the Sheriff’s Office said. McKenna, the truck driver and the girl were taken to Broward Health Medical Center. The girl died two days later.
The Sheriff’s Office did not release the identities of the truck driver or the girl, citing Marsy’s Law, a voter-approved constitutional amendment that allows victims of crimes to shield their identifying information from the public.
McKenna had life-threatening injuries after crash. He broke 13 bones in the crash and now uses a wheelchair, his attorney wrote in a recent court filing.
The defense attorney also wrote that the truck driver was given a speeding citation after the crash, citing a supplemental report from the Sheriff’s Office that said the truck driver may have been going as fast as 64 mph in the 35-mph zone.
The Sheriff’s Office detective who authored the supplemental report wrote that “the crash would have been avoided if the Ford were traveling at the posted speed limit of 35 mph,” McKenna’s attorney cited in his filing.
“The information learned throughout the course of this investigation indicates that both drivers contributed to the crash,” the Sheriff’s Office detective wrote in the supplemental report, according to the defense attorney’s filing.
McKenna’s next court appearance is scheduled for late October.