OPD officer arrested on hit-and-run charges

ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando police officer was arrested after investigators said he may have hit a woman’s car in a parking lot along Kirkman Road near Universal Studios and then took off.

Channel 9’s Kathi Belich received a tip that the Jan. 10  incident involved a police officer.

She sat down with the victim, who said he nearly ran her over.

WFTV broke the news to Yelena Kolmakova that off-duty Orlando officer Sean Gilhuly is the driver investigators think hit her car.

Kolmakova said the driver crashed into her car and then kept going.

She said when she got out to stop him after he got trapped behind the building, he bumped her with his Chevy Tahoe.

“He sped up. I realized he’s not going to stop and I just let him go,” she said.

She also said she is still being treated for her injuries.

“I was very scared. At that point I realized he was speeding up. I thought I would lose my life,” she said.

WFTV received a tip in January that the driver was Gilhuly.

When WFTV told Kolmakova, she googled his name and turned up a photo from a University of Central Florida website came up.

She told WFTV the former football player is the one who hit her.

She also said she identified him in an Orlando Police Department photo lineup.

The crash happened January 10.

Police said Officer Gilhuly was relieved of duty the day after the crash happened, but the reports said it didn’t find his address until two days after the accident.

The report said Gilhuly’s address wasn’t found until Jan. 13.

Then it said his damaged SUV was found in the garage on Jan.16.

Twelve days after the crash, OPD got security video of the incident but by then, Gilhuly had been arrested by Oviedo police who said they caught him behind the wheel with an open liquor bottle after a driver reported he sat through two green lights.

Belich asked OPD why it took so long to find its own officer's addresses and even longer to find his SUV and arrest him, but they didn’t comment.

The report never mentioned Gilhuly is a police officer.

Kolmakova said she doesn't think he should be one anymore.

WFTV