Two 15-year-old girls hit by teen driver in St. Petersburg

ST. PETERSBURG — Police said two 15-year-old girls walking in the road were hospitalized Thursday morning after a high school sophomore hit them from behind with his vehicle.

The girls, ninth-graders at Lakewood High School, were walking west on the north side of 58th Avenue S near Eighth Street around 7 a.m.

They were walking in the road because there is no sidewalk on the north side, police said.

Police said 16-year-old Tito Bell, a 10th-grader at Osceola High School, also heading west, did not see the students before his vehicle hit them, said police spokesman George Kajtsa. One of the students was thrown onto Bell's hood and into the windshield, and the other was clipped by a side mirror.

Police identified the girls as Zaena I. Armstrong and Mikale Johnson.

Both girls were taken to All Children's Hospital for treatment of minor injuries, police said.

Bell has a restricted driving permit, according to Kajtsa, who added there was no adult in the car.

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