Texas man killed after vehicle hits child

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man was beaten to death by enraged onlookers after the car in which he was riding struck a 4-year-old girl, said police in Austin, Texas on Wednesday.

Investigators believe David Rivas Morales, 40, was beaten by two or three men on Tuesday night after the girl was struck in the parking lot of an apartment building, said an Austin police commander. About two dozen people watched the fatal assault.

The girl was treated at an Austin hospital and released.

The men initially attacked the driver of the car but turned on Morales after he got out of the vehicle to try to stop the assault, said Commander Harold Piatt of the Austin police homicide unit.

"There was no weapon, it appears he was beaten with hands and feet," Piatt said.

The driver was able to leave the area in his car and was cooperating with homicide detectives.

Morales' sister, Margaret Morales, said her brother's killing was a "nightmare."

"You see it done somewhere else in other towns, but you never, never, think it could happen to you, that it would be one of your family members," she said.

While Morales is Hispanic and his attackers were black, police said they don't believe the attack was racially motivated.

"This wasn't a hate crime," Piatt said. "This wasn't a racist crime. There is absolutely no reason to think race had anything to do with this."

The parking lot was a block and a half away from a city-sponsored Juneteenth celebration that marks the anniversary of the June 19, 1865, announcement to Texas slaves they were free following the U.S. Civil War.