LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo is once again calling for stricter DUI penalties — this time following the death of a 12-year-old boy.

Oh’Ryan Brooks, 27, faces DUI and reckless driving-related charges after the deadly crash on Oct. 3. Brooks was driving an SUV near Owens Avenue and 21st Street when he struck Cristofer Suarez and then drove off, police said.

Suarez, who was walking to school at the time of the crash, later died from his injuries, his family confirmed.

Brooks told officers he had inhaled THC from a vape pen between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. as he was getting children ready for school, and again shortly before an officer arrived at his complex, because “he knew he was going to jail,” according to an arrest report.

A memorial grows for 12-year-old Cristofer Suarez. (KLAS)

“Donna and I were heartbroken to learn of the death of 12-year-old Cristofer Suarez, and our hearts are with his family, friends, and classmates,” the governor said in a statement Wednesday. “His tragic death reiterates the desperate need for greater DUI penalties in our state — which my administration will continue to fight for every day.”

Lombardo told the 8 News Now Investigators in March that he wanted to change Nevada’s DUI law to allow prosecutors to charge a DUI driver who kills with second-degree murder. The proposal eventually became part of the governor’s crime bill, the Safe Streets and Neighborhoods Act, which failed to become law in the final hours of the legislative session in June.

An amended version of the proposal would have carried a similar maximum sentence as the state’s second-degree murder statute. A second proposal focusing on Nevada’s vehicular homicide law also failed.

Nevada’s DUI-with-death law carries a sentence of 2-20 years. A 1995 Nevada law requires judges to sentence a person to a range, meaning the maximum amount of time a DUI driver who kills can serve in prison before going before the parole board is eight years. The 8 News Now Investigators have found most drivers who kill serve those eight years or less, not 20. In response, Lombardo proposed a law to increase the maximum amount of prison time to 25 years.

In the session’s aftermath, Lombardo suggested he would call lawmakers back to Carson City for a special session, including re-examining the crime bill. In a statement earlier this week, the governor said the special session would happen before the end of the year.

“Governor Lombardo has consistently said that the goal of a special session would be to finish what the legislature left unfinished — plain and simple,” his spokeswoman, Elizabeth Ray, said. “A clear example of the Legislature’s unfinished business is public safety. Their failure to move the Safe Streets and Neighborhoods Act — when there was clear agreement on both sides of the aisle — means that millions of Nevadans and visitors are at unnecessary risk, which is unacceptable.”

In July, Lombardo signed Senate Bill 309 into law as part of a ceremonial bill signing. The bill, from Republican State Sen. John Steinbeck, changed the minimum jail requirements for a person’s second DUI offense from 10 days to 20.

The law also lowers the blood-alcohol threshold for when a defendant will be ordered into treatment.

The change in the sentencing was the only meaningful change to Nevada’s DUI laws in a session focused on tougher consequences.

Lawmakers will not reconvene, except for special circumstances at the request of the governor, until February 2027.