Police say the Winter Park High School employee drove away after a December crash that seriously injured a 15-year-old riding to school in Casselberry.
CASSELBERRY, FL — A Winter Park High School teacher was arrested this week after police said he struck a teenage boy riding an electric scooter to school in December and left without stopping, a crash that left the boy with a fractured vertebra and months of recovery.
The arrest turned a months-old traffic investigation into a criminal case that now reaches from a busy Seminole County roadway to one of Central Florida’s best-known public high schools. Police identified the driver as Benjamin Hendricks Fottler, 49, and accused him of leaving the scene of a crash without rendering aid. The injured teen, Landon Cates, has told local news outlets that he is still in pain, still in a back brace and still unsure whether he will need surgery, while his family questions why the teacher remains on the job as the case moves forward.
Investigators said the crash happened early Dec. 11, 2025, near the intersection of Casselton Drive and State Road 436 in Casselberry as Landon, then 15, rode his scooter toward school. According to police, his mother reported later that day that her son’s back had been broken after he was hit. Hours later, officers said, Fottler also contacted police and reported that he might have struck something that morning. In the account summarized by investigators, Fottler said he was making a left turn and believed he had hit a traffic sign in the center median. He told officers the impact damaged the passenger-side mirror on his vehicle. Police said he also reported that his child was in the back seat and that he did not stop to check what he had hit before continuing on to drop the child at daycare and then go to work.
The teenager’s account is far more direct. Landon said he believed the driver knew a person had been hit and sped away anyway. “He did hit me. I assumed he noticed and sped away,” Landon said in an interview after the arrest. In another interview, he described how the first rush of adrenaline hid the injury before the pain set in. He said a witness ran to him and told him the driver had taken off “pedal to the metal.” Landon said the damage to his back has changed daily life in ways that are hard to ignore. He said he cannot run, bend or twist normally and has struggled to keep up with schoolwork while stuck at home. He also said the injury disrupted a plan that might have let him split time between school and trade training. His mother, Callista Cates, said she has repeatedly contacted the school system to explain why her son has been absent and why the family is uneasy about his eventual return.
The records described by police and reporters leave several important questions unanswered. It is still not clear whether investigators concluded that visibility, speed, lighting, road design or some other factor played the biggest role in the collision. Public accounts of the case do not say whether Landon was in a marked crossing area at the time of impact or whether any traffic cameras, business cameras or private surveillance footage captured the moment of the crash. Police have said Fottler’s explanation was that he thought he struck a sign, not a person, but investigators still sought a felony case because of the seriousness of the injuries and because he did not stop to verify what he hit. Landon said doctors have not yet told him whether surgery will be necessary. That uncertainty has kept the physical and emotional stakes high for his family months after the collision itself.
The case has also drawn attention because of where the accused driver works. Orange County Public Schools confirmed that Fottler is a teacher at Winter Park High School and said the crash did not happen while he was on duty or acting within his school role. Local reporting said the district has not placed him on leave as the criminal case proceeds. That decision has become part of the public reaction. Callista Cates said she worries about sending her son back into a school building where the accused driver still works. The school district has not publicly described any change in Fottler’s work status beyond saying the incident was unrelated to school operations. That has left the legal case and the school response moving on separate tracks, at least for now, even though the alleged victim and the accused are tied to the same school community.
For police and prosecutors, the path to the arrest appears to have involved a correction in how the crash was first handled. Reporting on the affidavit said Fottler was initially cited in error. Authorities later concluded that the teen’s injuries met the threshold for great bodily harm, which changed how the case should proceed. Instead of a lesser citation alone, police moved toward an arrest warrant, sometimes called a capias in Florida court practice, because leaving the scene of a crash involving serious bodily injury can be prosecuted as a felony. Court records cited by local outlets show Fottler was arrested Tuesday, March 10, and later released on bond. The public record available so far does not show a trial date, a plea in court or any detailed statement from a defense lawyer responding to the accusation. It also does not show whether additional traffic-related counts could be considered later.
The scene described in the reports is ordinary in the way many serious crashes are ordinary: a school commute, an arterial road, an early-morning turn and a teenager trying to get where he needed to go. State Road 436 is a major corridor through Seminole County, and the intersection named in the police account sits in the kind of suburban traffic landscape where cars, buses, school traffic and people on small personal vehicles often meet at awkward angles and high speeds. That does not answer the legal question of fault, but it helps explain why the case has resonated so quickly. Landon’s injuries were not minor bruises that healed in a week. He described ongoing pain, shaking in his arms and long stretches at home instead of in class. His mother’s comments added another layer, framing the case not just as a criminal charge but as a family’s daily struggle with school, health care and fear about what comes next.
Community reaction has centered less on broad debate than on the sharp contrast between the positions of the two sides. Police have laid out a case built on the claim that a driver hit a child, failed to stop and went on with the morning. Landon has spoken publicly in simple, painful terms about what that meant for his body and his school year. Fottler’s known explanation, as summarized by investigators, is that he believed he hit a median sign. That account may become central if the case reaches motions, plea talks or trial, because Florida hit-and-run cases often turn on what a driver knew or should have known after impact. For now, though, the strongest public voices have been the injured teen and his mother. Their comments have given the case a human scale that court language alone cannot provide, turning a file number into the story of a boy whose route to school ended with a broken back.
As of Thursday, March 12, the case remained in its early stages. Fottler had been arrested and released on bond, and the charge publicly identified was leaving the scene of a crash without rendering aid. Landon was still recovering, still wearing a brace and still waiting for clearer answers about whether his back will need surgery.
Author note: Last updated March 12, 2026.