Jonathan McCaffery, son of Iowa Basketball head coach Fran McCaffery, was revealed Wednesday to have been the driver responsible for the fatal car crash that occurred on May 22.
Jonathan McCaffery, 16, was named by the Iowa City Police Department in a press release on Wednesday. According to the release, the police, after consulting the Johnson County Attorney’s Office, have cited Jonathan McCaffery with failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, a simple misdemeanor.
Under Iowa law, the penalty for this misdemeanor is a fine of $1,000, a driver’s license suspension for up to 180 days, or both.
Fran and Margaret McCaffery, Jonathan McCaffery’s parents, released a press statement after the police’s announcement. In it, they write that their family had not released any statement out of respect for the family of Corey Hite, the victim of the accident, and to allow ICPD to conclude its investigation.
“On May 22nd, just after leaving school, our 16-year-old son was the driver in a vehicle/pedestrian accident. Investigators have told us that it was an unavoidable accident with no evidence to suggest distracted driving. The pedestrian, who was jogging at the time of the accident, was waved in front of our son’s passing vehicle by the driver of another vehicle. The jogger, Sgt. First Class Corey Hite, passed away two weeks after the accident from the injuries he sustained,” the McCafferys wrote. “We are devastated by this tragedy. SFC Hite’s family has our deepest sympathies. While our family continues to process the events of the past weeks and help our son cope with this accident, we will have no further comment at this time.”
The announcement from police comes nearly two months after the crash that killed Hite, a National Guardsman from Cedar Rapids who was due to retire a few weeks before the accident.
Few details had been made available since the accident, with police only having confirmed that Hite was hit by a car around 4 p.m. near the intersection of Melrose Avenue and Kennedy Parkway. Hite had been going for a run in the area, which is less than a mile away from Iowa City West High School, when he was struck.
Hite was then taken to the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, before dying on June 4.
Shortly after the accident, The Daily Iowan reached out to the police department for comment but was declined, with the police citing an ongoing investigation. Around the same time, an information request from the Iowa City Press-Citizen supported by Iowa code was similarly denied.
Kenna Roering contributed to this report.