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Alleged hit-and-run driver charged

• Two pedestrian victims were treated and later released from the hospital in a hit-and-run incident.

J.D. Sumner

ALBANY — A 65-year-old Albany man charged in connection with a hit-and-run crash that injured two people Monday, has a history of impaired driving, court records show.

Manuel John Hall, 65, was charged Friday with two counts of serious injury by vehicle, driving with a suspended license, failure to yield at a crosswalk for a pedestrian and hit-and-run, after police say he struck two people at the intersection of Jefferson Street and Pine Avenue.

He surrendered to authorities at the Dougherty County Jail and was released on a $5,100 bond, jail officials said.

The two victims, 36-year-old Donna King and 37-year-old Kenneth Parker, were taken by ambulance to an area hospital for treatment. They have since been released, Albany Police spokesperson Phyllis Banks said.

Banks said that Parker and King were walking south on Jefferson Street when they were struck by a man driving a blue 1986 Chevy C-10 pickup truck that was traveling west on Pine Avenue.

Investigators say that Hall said he didn’t see the two crossing the street when the crash occurred, Banks said.

According to court records, Hall pleaded guilty in 2001 to a DUI charge after being arrested by a Georgia State Trooper on East Oglethorpe Boulevard near Thornton Road and was ordered to pay a $1,129 fine, spend a year in jail and work 80 hours of community service.

In 1996 he was arrested for DUI, crossing the median and driving without proof of insurance. In that case, he was ordered to pay $529 in fines and court costs, serve a year in jail and work 40 hours of community service, according to court documents.

Initially brought in for questioning by a family member a day after the crash, warrants weren’t issued for Hall’s arrest until late Thursday.

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