Mar 15, 2026 04:12 AM
(This post was last modified: Mar 15, 2026 04:56 AM by The Pact.)
High School Teacher Allegedly Hit Student, 16, with His Car and Left the Scene, Leaving the Teen with a Broken Back.
The morning of December 11th began like any other for Landon Cates, a student gliding on his scooter through the familiar streets near Winter Park High School. But at the intersection of Casselton Drive and the busy State Road 436, the ordinary shattered. A car, driven by Benjamin Fottler, a teacher from the very school Cates attended, struck the teen, sending him sprawling before the vehicle sped away into the traffic.
For more than three agonizing months, the driver of that car remained a ghost in the hit-and-run that left a young student injured and a community searching for answers.
Then, on March 10, the law finally caught up. Fottler, 49, was arrested, the quiet life of a teacher collapsing under the weight of a felony hit-and-run charge. He walked free hours later, his $20,000 bond securing his release, but the questions were only just beginning.
In a chilling call to police made moments after the impact, Fottler allegedly tried to make up a story of confusion. "I hit, I thought, a sign in the median that damaged my... driver-side mirror," he claimed.
But the narrative began to fray when he mentioned his wife. She had taken the same route just 20 minutes later, only to find an ambulance at that very intersection. "Somebody had gotten hit," she had told him. The truth he couldn't escape was now echoing back from his own family.
While the legal system grapples with the case, a stark irony hangs in the air. Orange County Public Schools confirms Fottler remains in the classroom, not on leave. The incident, the school claims, happened off the clock, outside the scope of his job. For the students walking the halls of Winter Park High, the man who stands at the front of their classroom is now the man at the centre of a dark and unresolved mystery.
https://people.com/teacher-allegedly-hit...e-11926353
The morning of December 11th began like any other for Landon Cates, a student gliding on his scooter through the familiar streets near Winter Park High School. But at the intersection of Casselton Drive and the busy State Road 436, the ordinary shattered. A car, driven by Benjamin Fottler, a teacher from the very school Cates attended, struck the teen, sending him sprawling before the vehicle sped away into the traffic.
For more than three agonizing months, the driver of that car remained a ghost in the hit-and-run that left a young student injured and a community searching for answers.
Then, on March 10, the law finally caught up. Fottler, 49, was arrested, the quiet life of a teacher collapsing under the weight of a felony hit-and-run charge. He walked free hours later, his $20,000 bond securing his release, but the questions were only just beginning.
In a chilling call to police made moments after the impact, Fottler allegedly tried to make up a story of confusion. "I hit, I thought, a sign in the median that damaged my... driver-side mirror," he claimed.
But the narrative began to fray when he mentioned his wife. She had taken the same route just 20 minutes later, only to find an ambulance at that very intersection. "Somebody had gotten hit," she had told him. The truth he couldn't escape was now echoing back from his own family.
While the legal system grapples with the case, a stark irony hangs in the air. Orange County Public Schools confirms Fottler remains in the classroom, not on leave. The incident, the school claims, happened off the clock, outside the scope of his job. For the students walking the halls of Winter Park High, the man who stands at the front of their classroom is now the man at the centre of a dark and unresolved mystery.
https://people.com/teacher-allegedly-hit...e-11926353
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