Parents want tougher charge for driver in accident that killed their daughter

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The parents of a young woman killed in a traffic accident in Cobb County two weeks ago are angrily complaining that the charges are not serious enough against the driver accused of causing the crash.

Alberto Jose Abreus is charged with vehicular homicide in the second degree, a misdemeanor that could bring 12 months in jail, in the death of Chassity Hollaman.

Hollaman had a green light at the intersection of Barrett Parkway and Roberts Boulevard in Kennesaw when Abreus allegedly ran a red light on April 20. His 1996 Infiniti G20 slammed into the side of Hollaman’s 2006 Toyota Solara.

Hollaman died two days later at Wellstar Kenneston Hospital.

“They took my child, my 20-year-old child, out of my arms. They put her in the ground. That’s not a misdemeanor,” Tammie Hollaman, the mother, told Channel 2 Action News. “I will fight until my very last breath to breathe. I will fight to change that. It’s not right.”

But District Attorney Pat Head, who prosecutes felonies in Cobb County, and Solicitor Barry Morgan, who pursues misdemeanor cases, said the circumstances of the accident did not support a more serious charge of vehicular homicide in the first degree, which carries as much as 15 years in prison.

A felony vehicular homicide charge can be brought only if a wreck was caused by someone who was speeding, running from police or driving drunk, Morgan and Head said.

“These second degree vehicular homicides … are all tragedies. We are not insensitive to that,” Morgan told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday. “But I don’t have the authority to make it a felony.”

Head made the same point.

“If there are people who want to change that, they need to go to the Legislature and get that changed,” Head said.