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Alleged hit-and-run driver in Bronx gets murder charge

A 22-year-old man was charged Sunday with two counts of murder in connection with a hit-and-run that killed a Wakefield man.

Police said Henry Lawrence, of Eastchester, was driving a 1988 Toyota Sienna east, barreling down a sidewalk at a high speed when it struck 32-year-old Derrick Callender outside his apartment building at East 233rd Street near White Plains Road shortly after midnight Saturday.

After the car crashed, Lawrence and an unknown number of passengers jumped out of the vehicle and fled, an NYPD spokeswoman said.

Steven Reed, a spokesman with the Bronx district attorney’s office, said Lawrence was in a dispute earlier at that location with someone wielding a baseball bat before driving onto the sidewalk and hitting Callender.

Callender was taken to Montefiore North Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Lawrence, who has 10 prior arrests, faces two murder charges and a count of manslaughter. Police said the collision is under investigation.