Teen hit, killed by corrections officer

PERE MARQUETTE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD/AP) - Authorities say a 14-year-old boy was struck and killed while trying to cross a roadway in West Michigan.

The Mason County sheriff's department says Darius Vanbrook of Lansing died after being hit Sunday morning on U.S. 10 near Ludington.

The department says the boy got out of a vehicle just before he was hit by a pickup truck driven by an off-duty sheriff department corrections officer who apparently didn't see him. The officer was treated at an emergency room before being released.

Undersheriff Thomas Trenner says the boy's hometown initially was reported as the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming before authorities determined it was Lansing.

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A Wyoming teen was killed after he was hit by an off-duty Mason County Sheriff's Department corrections officer near Ludington on Sunday morning.

According to Mason County Undersheriff Thomas Trenner, the 14-year-old Wyoming boy was struck at about 5:40 a.m. Sunday after he exited a van on US-10 near Pere Marquette Highway.

The driver of the vehicle that struck and killed the teen was a part-time corrections officer, who had apparently just finished his shift at the county jail.

Trenner said that the corrections officer never saw the teen.

The corrections officer was "shaken by the incident," Trenner told 24 Hour News 8.

"It doesn't make a difference who you are when something like that happens," Trenner told 24 Hour News 8. "It can be a life-altering experience."

The 14-year-old had just left the Best Western hotel at which he'd been staying, which is not far from where the accident happened. The boy's father was in the van when the boy was hit and killed.

It's not yet clear why the teen exited the van.

The Michigan State Police will investigate because the driver of the vehicle is a sheriff's department employee. That corrections officer will not be on duty for a few weeks.

Neither the teen nor the corrections officer are being identified at this time.

"It's a tragedy," said Trenner.