Ryniqueka Dowell and her 6-year-old twin sons have been driving by Rodeo final week when a automobile fleeing the police struck their automobile. Because it occurs, Dowell was headed to fulfill with the mom of a buddy who died in a automobile crash.
Erika Stitt—whose daughter Akilah Kelly died in that wreck a dozen years earlier—recollects one thing her son mentioned as they waited for Dowell to indicate up.
“As I’m making ready to go stroll out the door, my son calls me and says, ‘Mother, test her location.’ I mentioned, ‘I can’t see the placement,’ and he mentioned, ‘I believe she was in an accident.’”
Her son was proper. That day, March 23, a high-speed chase ended tragically within the small East Bay city of Rodeo. A suspected automobile thief smashed into Dowell’s automobile with an influence so violent that it flipped her automobile, killing the 31-year-old mom immediately and her son Jamari Humble a day later. His twin, Jamani, survived, Dowell’s aunt Takesha Moore mentioned.
Their deaths led to homicide fees for accused getaway driver Ralph Ellsworth White III, a 20-year-old from Vallejo. It additionally revived questions on when high-speed police pursuits are acceptable—and whether or not a stolen automobile justified the breakneck chase that got here to a lethal conclusion in Rodeo.
In close by Hercules, the place an officer with the native police division initiated the chase, regulation enforcement has a coverage that requires warning with high-speed chases. Particularly, it advises officers to chorus from such chases over nonviolent misdemeanors. Many police departments bar chases outright, as a result of they’ve led to lethal collisions.
Hercules police declined to debate both the coverage or whether or not the officer pursuing White, who was charged with possession of a gun, thought the suspect had used violence. If he did, it could be mirrored within the cost accusing White of possessing an unlawful firearm.
Whereas it’s unclear whether or not violence preceded the chase, prosecutors say it actually ended that approach, in a wreck that gravely injured a baby and claimed the lives of a mom and son.
From Foster Care to Social Work
Dowell’s dying leaves a big group of individuals throughout the Bay Space mourning the lack of an in depth buddy and member of the family admired for her grit and charm.
“She made a life for herself after all of the stuff we’ve been by,” mentioned Chanel Gaines, Dowell’s cousin.
Household and mates mentioned Dowell, a Richmond native, got here from a big household earlier than ending up in foster care, the place she witnessed violence and dysfunction. The time she spent within the system impressed her to make a profession out of defending youngsters by social work.
A devoted mom and associate, Dowell doted on her twins, who in flip regarded out for one another. She taught her sons signal language when she discovered that that they had autistic traits. When, to her delighted shock, they started to talk, she put them in speech remedy, Moore mentioned.
Jamari—“a wise, pleased, cute child”—was outgoing and favored to joke round, Dowell’s cousin Tyesha McCray mentioned. He was inseparable from his twin, who he all the time stored heading in the right direction.
Dowell had spent most of her earlier years surrounded by youngsters within the house of her paternal aunt, Billie, and her husband L.T. Walker, who ran a wrecking yard. She referred to as them her grandparents.
“It was truly enjoyable,” Gaines mentioned. “We want we might return to these days.”
However when her caretakers fell sick, the kids needed to be dispersed, some to household, some to the state.
“As soon as they left us, all of us needed to cut up,” Gaines mentioned. “We didn’t actually have mothers or dads round.”
For Dowell, reuniting along with her dad and mom wasn’t an possibility. Her mom struggled with drug dependancy whereas her father had been incarcerated her entire life. Dowell had solely met him a number of years in the past. She was despatched to the foster care system, Gaines mentioned.
“Ryniqueka bounced round in foster care,” mentioned Stitt, who usually tried to assist Dowell.
Regardless of the household’s separation, Dowell managed to keep up a correspondence with kin and even ran away in her teen years to search out them. Gaines remembers assembly her at a BART station after one in all her escapes to present her mobile phone to Dowell.
In highschool, Dowell was an lively scholar concerned in cheerleading and softball, McCray mentioned.
However Dowell’s circumstances pressured her to develop up quick.
At 16, she was emancipated from her dad and mom and positioned in an condominium of her personal by the state, Gaines mentioned.
She moved away from her household within the East Bay to attend Sacramento State College from 2010 to 2016, the place she majored in American Signal Language and deaf research.
After commencement, Dowell settled within the state capital, started working for Baby Protecting Providers and had two sons along with her highschool sweetheart, Jeffrey Humble.
However she remained near her Bay Space household, visiting usually regardless of the two-hour drive every approach.
Demise was a continuing in her household life. One in every of her cousins was gunned down years in the past, not removed from the place Dowell died within the crash, Gaines mentioned.
Dowell gave her coronary heart to others in some ways.
She danced at funerals, made lanyards with the faces of the deceased and created waterproof grave coverings, Moore mentioned.
Dowell’s household mentioned her troubled childhood impressed her compassion and resilience.
“She had that kind of coronary heart,” Moore mentioned. “It made her sturdy.”
Now, an Ocean Seashore bonfire held yearly to recollect the buddy who died within the 2011 crash will even change into an event to mourn Dowell.
Jonah Owen Lamb will be reached at [email protected]