The family of a man who was killed in a hit-and-run last summer is seeking justice for their brother — whose death they say was captured on video by a bystander who witnessed the fatal strike.
Jose Concepcion, 49, who his sisters said was partially blind, was crossing Edwards Street in Hartford when a dark colored car sped toward him, striking him and sending him flying across the road.
Concepcion’s sisters, Belinda Cruz and Elizabeth Conception, said they have the surveillance video of the crash that killed their brother.
“There’s a video that surfaced and you can see that it was done … I feel like he (the suspect) was given a slap on the wrist,” said Elizabeth Concepcion, who noted she hasn’t been able to bring herself to watch the video.
The sisters asked that the video not be published, but the Hartford Courant reviewed the video. It shows a man in a white T-shirt crossing the middle of the street with no visible oncoming traffic. When a dark-colored car enters the frame, the man attempts to run and motions for the car to stop as he sees the car heading toward him, but the car did not stop.
The man is struck by the front of the car and is sent flying into the air. The video shows his body flip around in the air before crashing in the roadway and sliding across the pavement.
Then, the car drives off.
Elizabeth Concepcion said that a witness who saw the crash recalled seeing the car speed off.
“He left your brother there to die,” she said the witness told her as she visited the crash site, lighting candles at a memorial site that was put up at the spot where he was hit.
Police later charged Marlin Lanier with leaving the scene of the accident.
Police charged Lanier with four motor vehicle charges: evading responsibility in an accident causing death, reckless driving, illegal operation of a motor vehicle with a suspended license and failure to renew registration.
According to a warrant for Lanier’s arrest, police responded to the area of Edwards Street just south of Albany Avenue at 11:06 a.m. and “found a seriously injured male in the roadway.”
He was taken to Saint Francis Hospital, where he was pronounced dead less than 30 minutes later.
A detective from the Crime Scene Division responded to the scene just before noon and found pieces of the vehicle that struck Concepcion on the road, according to the warrant affidavit.
Detectives were alerted that the incident was captured on private security camera footage and video surveillance from Hartford’s Capital City Command Center, or C4.
Surveillance footage, police said in the warrant affidavit, allegedly shows Lanier leaving an apartment on Center Street that morning, getting into the driver’s seat of a black Infiniti and then allegedly “recklessly passing multiple vehicles and fatally striking victim Jose Concepcion.”
The warrant also details eyewitness accounts.
One witness, police reported, said “she saw the black car go around a garbage truck and the next thing she saw was the man flying and hitting the ground.”
Concepcion’s sisters sat in a Hartford courtroom this week as a judge implored the young man charged to cooperate with his lawyer.
“I don’t understand why this should be so complicated” said Judge David P. Gold, who said Marlin Lanier’s lawyer had asked Lanier multiple times to file documents she needed for his case.
Lanier, who has another pending cases in Hartford, is free on a $100,000 bond awaiting trial.
He also faces criminal charges in Hartford for violating a protective order and second-degree criminal mischief in Jan. 2023, records show.
Concepcion’s sisters described their brother as a caring, kind and compassionate man.
“He had five sons and he had us,” Elizabeth Concepcion said.
Cruz, Concepcion’s younger sister, said that she was searching for her brother for a week before he died.
Jose Conception, who struggled with substance use addiction, had been struggling even more after the death of their mother in February 2022.
Jose Concepcion would visit his mother’s grave every single day, his sisters said.
When his youngest sister went to the cemetery and saw that there were no flowers recently left at the mother’s grave, she knew something was wrong.
Then came the call from her daughter, who had been notified that Jose Concepcion had died in a hit and run, she said.
The family buried Jose Concepcion beside his mother in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford.
Now, as they grieve the loss of their brother and mother, the sisters are attending every court date Lanier has, hoping for justice.
“We just want justice,” they both said.
Cruz said she hopes Lanier faces harsher charges and that police and prosecutors take another look at the video she keeps on her phone that she said shows her brother hit with the car.
They said they feel that it is unfair that Lanier gets to spend time with his family, but they never get to spend time with their brother again.
“He [Lanier] celebrated the holidays with his family while Jose was nowhere,” Elizabeth Concepcion said.
“I’m enraged, I’m not going to deny it.”
The vehicle in the video Cruz provided matches a surveillance image released by police after the crash.
Investigators released that photo in hopes of identifying the driver, saying a motorist driving a black Infiniti with Connecticut license plate BF54937, a shattered windshield and a dented hood, had left the scene of the accident.
Conception was struck about 11:06 a.m. on June 16 and was found in the roadway. Lanier was arrested by the Hartford Police Department on Sept. 21, 2023.
Judge David P. Gold this week gave Lanier until his next court date in May to provide his lawyer with the documents she needs.
“Otherwise I guess you’re going to be representing yourself or paying for your own lawyer,” the judge said.
Lanier is currently represented by Claire Jabbour, a public defender.
“I’m telling you in no uncertain terms, get this material that Ms. Jabbour needs,” said Gold.
Hartford Police Department spokesperson Lt. Aaron Boisvert said the department’s investigation into the crash was closed after Lanier’s arrest and that additional charges, if any, would be filed through the court.
Lanier remains out on bond and is due back in Hartford Superior Court May 16.
