A Bay Area family is doing their best to hold it together after their loved ones were hit by a stolen car suspect fleeing from police in Rodeo.
Thirty-one-year-old Ryniqueka Dowell, a social worker, was killed instantly and her 6-year-old-twin boys badly injured. On Monday afternoon, the family announced that one of the twins injured, Jamari Humble, died.
“They lost their mama. He lost his brother. His daddy will never be the same, never we will never be the same,” said Dowell’s cousin, Andrea Roberts.
Ralph Ellsworth White III, 20, is in jail facing two counts of second degree murder. But the family is blaming the police for the tragedy and is asking for answers.
“If it wasn’t for the police chasing him, this would not have occurred,” said Ranesha Moore, Dowell’s aunt. “You knew nine times out of 10 when you got behind that vehicle it was going to speed and it was going to take off. It was already a stolen vehicle so you think he’s going to obey the law when you get behind him and he’s driving something that’s not his.”
“Every time you turn around they’re chasing people through a residential neighborhood. Hercules Police don’t give a flying you know what about chasing nobody,” said Chanel Gaines, Dowell’s cousin.
Jamani remains hospitalized and the family doesn’t know how to tell him his mom and twin brother are gone.
“One of them got to wake up to his mom dead, he keeps asking, ‘where’s his mama? where’s his brother?’” said Roberts.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.