A 25-year-old man from Bradenton was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Sarasota in the early hours of Sunday, November 15, and Sarasota police are asking for witnesses after the driver fled and left him in the road. Sarasota County Emergency Services responded around 3:45 a.m. to a report of an unconscious man in the road near 10th Street and Cocoanut Avenue, according to the Sarasota Police Department account reported by ABC Action News (Tampa Bay 28).

When officers arrived, they determined the man had been involved in a hit-and-run crash. Police have not released his name. The Sarasota Police Department's Traffic Unit and Crime Scene Unit both responded to investigate, which is the department's standard response to a fatal crash, and the investigation is continuing.

Road closures through the morning

The intersection of 10th Street and Cocoanut Avenue was closed from approximately 3:45 a.m. until 8:15 a.m. while investigators worked the scene, police said. In its first alert, issued at 4:22 a.m., the department closed 10th Street between Cocoanut Avenue and Central Avenue, and the road was still closed at 6:54 a.m., FOX 13 News reported. The crossing sits in the Rosemary District, the historic neighbourhood immediately north of downtown Sarasota, an area of restaurants, apartments and arts venues that is busy on weekend nights.

A second fatal hit-and-run in the area in two days

Sunday's death is the second fatal hit-and-run investigation in the Sarasota-Manatee area in roughly 48 hours. On Friday evening, November 13, at around 11:12 p.m., a 53-year-old Palmetto woman was struck and killed while crossing the travel lanes of U.S. 41 near Bayshore Road in Palmetto, and the Florida Highway Patrol said the driver fled southbound; troopers said the vehicle may be a white 2021-2023 Kia K5 with front left-side damage — a case Awaaz Punjab reported on Saturday. The two cases involve different agencies and different roads, and police have not suggested any link between them.

Sarasota has also carried a longer hit-and-run case through its courts: in February 2025 a driver struck a family crossing U.S. 301 at Seventh Street, killing two young children, with their mother dying later from her injuries; the charged driver is awaiting a trial scheduled for December 2026, according to Sarasota News Leader court reporting. That case, like Sunday's, turned on how quickly a driver who leaves can be identified from video and vehicle evidence.

Why the first hours matter

In hit-and-run investigations, detectives say the first day is usually decisive: businesses overwrite surveillance video, damaged vehicles get repaired or hidden, and witnesses who were out late in an entertainment district become harder to find. That is why the department issued its appeal while the intersection was still closed, naming a single Traffic Unit officer, Michael Pietron, as the contact point rather than a general tip line alone.

For the Punjabi and wider diaspora community in Florida — including truck drivers who run U.S. 41, Interstate 75 and the Gulf Coast corridors overnight — the practical point is the timing: the crash happened in the pre-dawn hours when overnight freight and hospitality-shift traffic shares the road with pedestrians leaving late-night venues, and when a fleeing driver can be out of the county within minutes on I-75.

What happens next

The Traffic Unit and Crime Scene Unit investigation continues. Police are expected to release a vehicle description if debris or video identifies one, and the victim's name once family notification is complete. Under Florida practice, a driver who leaves the scene of a fatal crash faces a felony investigation once identified; no suspect had been named as of Sunday morning. Anyone who was near 10th Street and Cocoanut Avenue around 3:45 a.m. on Sunday, or who has dashcam video from the Rosemary District at that hour, is asked to call Officer Pietron at 941-263-6773.