Video from the scene

Several jurors closed their eyes and shook their heads Tuesday during testimony about the “explosion” when an SUV fleeing from police collided with a car, fatally injuring a 12-year-old boy on his way to school.

Houston Chronicle

Dominique Janee Bromon appears in court Tuesday for opening arguments in her felony murder trial involving a death following a 2006 police chase through southwest Houston.

Dominique Janee Bromon, 19, faces a sentence ranging from probation to 99 years or life in prison if convicted of felony murder in the death of Kyndall Batiste.

Bromon, then 18, was fleeing from police in a sport utility vehicle on the morning of Jan. 27, 2006, when she ran a stop sign and hit a car driven by the boy’s mother, prosecutors said as the trial began Tuesday.

“Because of Dominique Bromon blowing through that stop sign, little Kyndall’s body was ejected through the back window and hit the pavement,” said Assistant District Attorney Mark Donnelly.

Jurors were told they will hear medical experts testify that the boy, who died two days later, suffered skull fractures and other injuries. Bromon ran away, but was arrested a short time later, Donnelly said.

Kyndall Batiste was flown to a hospital. His mother, Natasha Batiste, had to be cut out of the wreckage but survived.

The chase began at Bellaire and Jetty, in southwest Houston, after a Houston police officer spotted what he believed to be a stolen black Toyota 4Runner with four people inside. Officers blocked the SUV in a parking lot, Donnelly said, but Bromon drove through the blockade, hitting a police car as two of her passengers bailed out.

Donnelly said Bromon led police about four miles in a circle before the chase ended with the crash in the 12100 block of Beechnut.

Defense attorney Lott Brooks said outside the courtroom that he wants to put the police department’s chase policy on trial, in hopes of lessening Bromon’s culpability. He said police didn’t have to chase her.

“They all knew who she was. They had the license plate,” said Brooks, who contends that the SUV belonged to a friend of Bromon’s. “They wouldn’t have had any problem finding her.”

Felony murder is a charge alleging that a death occurred because someone did something clearly dangerous to human life during a felony. It is different from capital murder in that the latter charge requires prosecutors to prove the killing was intentional.