Boy's holiday joy ends in a squeal of tires

By THOMAS LAKE, Times Staff Writer
Published December 28, 2007

TAMPA - Railroad tracks split 28th Avenue as it passes through College Hill, creating a dead-end street that is often full of children. There is no park in sight. The avenue is their playground.

This Christmas, according to several neighbors, 5-year-old Randall Williams received a brand-new motorized scooter. It is not clear who gave it to him, or why.

Just before noon Thursday, police say, Randall rode his scooter onto the avenue wearing no protective gear. He headed east toward the stop sign at 31st Street. The intersection is a two-way stop, and traffic on 31st flows unabated.

Along came a Dodge Durango.

Tires squealed and a woman screamed. Randall's friend, Demarcos Fleming, 11, said he saw Randall flying toward the sidewalk. The driver stopped and got out.

"I hit him," he heard her say.

Witnesses say Randall lay on the weatherbeaten asphalt, his leg folded behind him. Blood came from his mouth.

His mother came out of the house and saw her son. Her full name was not known by those interviewed for this story, but they said she hesitated, seeming to be too stunned to approach him at first.

"Is he dead?" she asked those gathered around the child.

He was not. Paramedics transported him to Tampa General Hospital, where he was listed in serious condition Thursday afternoon. Family members could not be reached for comment.

No one was cited for the crash. Police Cpl. Jared Douds said the Durango's driver, Jacquelyn Randall, 48, of 3008 27th Avenue, had the right of way and was not at fault. Witnesses said she was driving slowly and that the boy darted into her path.

Eddie Hammonds, 51, lives on the street, and said the day after Christmas he saw the street swarming with children.

"It may have been 30 bicycles out here," he said.

Lou Fleming, a longtime schoolteacher who lives a few strides from the intersection, said authorities should build a playground nearby and install speed bumps on 31st Street. But neither solution would entirely solve the problem of unwatched children.

"They just run wild," she said.

At dusk, Jacquelyn Randall returned to 28th Avenue to see if the boy was all right. No one answered the door at his house. She sat in the driver's seat of her Durango, fighting back tears.

A reporter asked her if she wanted to talk.

"I really don't feel like it," she said, and drove off, slowly, past the children playing on the avenue's edge.

Times staff writer Casey Cora contributed to this report. Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or 1-800-333-7505, ext. 3416.

[Last modified December 28, 2007, 16:24:35]