Youth coach charged in deadly hit-and-run By Paul Nelson
Updated 12:10 am, Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Schenectady
Adimu "Muey" Goodwin was on the sidelines Friday night at the Schenectady Belmont Pop Warner football team practice at Mont Pleasant Middle School roughly an hour before he allegedly struck and killed a pedestrian and hit another one on State Street, according to police and Carmen DePoalo, the football team's head coach.
Police said he left the scene in a van and later abandoned it.
Around 2:30 p.m. Monday, the Schenectady father and Pop Warner football coach surrendered to police with his attorney by his side and was charged with second-degree manslaughter, two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment, leaving the scene without reporting and leaving the scene of a personal injury, all felonies, as well as aggravated unlicensed operation and reckless driving, both misdemeanors.
Goodwin, 41, is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Schenectady City Court on the criminal charges that could land him in prison for decades.
DePoalo said he was with Goodwin, or "Coach Moo," as he calls him, when Goodwin turned himself in to police.
He said police had called him Friday asking about Goodwin.
DePoalo, who himself played Pop Warner and has coached in the league for the past 47 years, said he learned about the hit-and-run after receiving a call from Goodwin's mother, who serves as the team's treasurer and secretary. She told him that her son was too embarrassed to call DePoalo himself because he felt like he had let the coach and team down.
Police said Goodwin hit Donald Shaffer, 61, as the man walked north across State Street near the intersection of Moyston Street.
He is in stable condition at Albany Medical Center Hospital.
The second victim was identified as 29-year-old Jerry Faine. He was struck near the intersection of State Street and Waldorf Place and taken to Albany Medical Center Hospital where he later died of his injuries.
Police said Goodwin abandoned a white Econoline van at the dead end of Waldorf Place and fled into a nearby cemetery.
Schenectady Police Chief Brian Kilcullen said Tuesday that investigators were still trying to determine a motive.
"We don't know what caused him to hit two pedestrians in a short proximity and why he left the scene," said Kilcullen, noting the company van belonged to the Schenectady Recycling & Redemption Center where Goodwin was employed.
DePoalo said the Belmont Pop Warner family, whose motto is "One Team One Family" is heartbroken and disappointed but that the players and coaches and their families plan to support Goodwin.
"My kids are going to pray for him and we're going to cry for him," said DePoalo, adding that Goodwin has been behind bars in the past when he was younger. "I explained to the kids that the bigger picture is that someone lost their lives and that it's not all about Muey."
He said Goodwin has an 18-year-old son, a daughter who recently turned 1, and a 13-year-old stepchild.
"I'm devastated it happened, and this is so out of character with Muey that I've been crying all day" DePoalo said. "He wasn't drunk, he wasn't high, his biggest mistake was leaving the scene of the accident."
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Youth-coach-charged-in-deadly-hit-and-run-6449857.php
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